Is Jesus Yhwh (God)?
There is a passage in Zechariah, Zechariah chapter 2 verse 8, which implies that the word of Yhwh is Yhwh too. Obviously this could be misunderstood in a way that could confuse anyone taking it too literally. Hyper-literalism is a problem with many poorly taught teachings in Christianity. If we are careful to get this right it helps us understand the true meaning of John 1:1 “the word was with God and the word was God”. Your spoken word could be said to be you. If I hear your word, in one sense I hear you. But clearly this should not be taken too literally. Your word is you in a very limited sense. Your spoken words are not as much you as you are you, and so you are greater than your words. There is much more to you than your words alone. Clearly Yhwh is greater than His word. Now this can get more confusing because John also points out in John 1 that the word became flesh and Jesus is that word made flesh. If we now combine these two concepts it has to be done with great care lest being over literal in our understanding leads to a confusing mess. Jesus is not literally the word of God. Jesus is a human being. He ran around and played as a child and fell over and did things which got him told off. His own family often found it hard to believe he was anything very special. He was literally human, not a sound filling the air with noise like a voice does. Not literally just the word of God nor is the word of God just Jesus. He is the word of God in a certain sense. God sent Jesus just like in Zechariah we are told that God sent His word. Jesus is the word of God, yes, but in a spiritual sense of the reason his human life started in the womb of his mother and the purpose of that life coming into the world. Only this sense, not a hyper-literal sense, should be combined with the concept in Zechariah 2:8 of the word of Yhwh being Yhwh. John 1:1 combines the two but we need to understand it correctly. The word of God is God. In a certain sense. Jesus is the word of God made flesh. In a certain sense. If we misunderstand it we can get to a kind of mistaken idea that Jesus literally is God, that Jesus is Yhwh. Only in the sense that Jesus is Yhwh’s word come in the flesh sent from Yhwh (sent from God) is he Yhwh. No more than this. Any more literal than this and it gets confusing and erroneous: Especially confusing since he is the Son of God, the Son of Yhwh. We must correctly understand the language and the concepts and not be hyper-literal in that understanding. Hyper-literal misunderstandings have been the bane of Christianity throughout its history.
