Review: Putting Jesus in His Place

Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ
J. Ed Komoszewski, Robert M. Bowman

The entire premise of this book is to expand the proofs for the deity of Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus Christ) from the Scriptures themselves. Given the Scriptures as being true and accurate accounts of His life, how can we know, for certain, that He actually claimed to be God Himself?

The evidence is broken up into multiple lines of reasoning, based around an abbreviation, HANDS, which stands for honor, attributes, names, deeds, and seat. The idea is to show that Jesus shares each of these things with God, and hence must be God. The authors investigate several lines of proof I’d never seen before, clearly showing the deity of Christ.

For instance, in the area of honor, the authors show that Jesus was worshiped while on the Earth, and not just treated as a great teacher. For instance, the authors use the words of Paul in Ephesians 5:18-22 to show that singing hymns to Jesus was a normal, expected part of Christian services in the early Church.

The authors do “push” things a little in some areas, I think, trying to dig deep to find associations that might be questionable. For instance:

• Every “new song” in the Tanakh is a song of praise to God.
• There is a “new song” in Revelation that is sung to the Lamb.
• The Lamb is Jesus.
• Hence, Jesus must be God.

I follow the logic, but it’s a bit “stretched.” And it’s puzzling because the authors prove the same point, that the Lamb is worshipped in Revelation, and Jesus is the Lamb, so Jesus must be God, a few paragraphs farther on. The simpler proof, I think, was the better one. Overall, though, this doesn’t detract from the quality of the arguments made, nor the usefulness of this book in examining the deity of Christ.

The one thing I found difficult to deal with was the constant reference to other works to back up the arguments the authors were making. I know this is standard fare in theological circles now, but it has a feel of the Talmud about it. We’re to the point of the Rabbi’s, where we always argue from authority, rather than from what the Scriptures actually say. We don’t let the Text speak for itself, and make our points, we must always refer to someone else’s argument to prove ours. It’s a bad habit in the Christian world, and it seems to be on the rise, rather than waning.

I’ve been trying to drive into my own head, even as I go through seminary, to deal with the issues, not with the authorities. Authorities are interesting because they point out lines of argumentation and things I’ve never seen, but the Text, itself, is from God. We should never forget that.

Highly Recommended

Updated to clear up some awkward sentences…

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