KenTheExegete

This is the being of a two part article is in refutation to a group of Unitarian TikTok guys who debate with @IglesiaNiChristos

This past Monday, two of my brothers in Christ @TheWordandI and @OneWayApologetics did a two vs two debate with two others from @IglesiaNiChristos TikTok group.

In the debate, they quotes some interesting passages attempting to prove that Jesus Christ is not eternal, and that he was created and came into existence.

Let’s hammer way one by one each passage they quoted to try proving that Jesus came into existence:

Galatians 4:4-6 (LSB)

4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, 5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.6 And because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

Most of this excerpt is taken from the monumental work titled The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense, authored by Robert M. Bowman Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, published by Kregel Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2024, Part 2: Like Father, Like Son: Jesus’ Divine Attributes, Chapter 11: The Paradoxical Person, pp. 207-10.

The two words highlighted in the passage above are key words we need to focus on to understand what Paul is saying and what he’s not saying.

v.4) “God sent forth His Son”.

Word that Paul uses here for “sent forth” is the word exapesteilen which comes from the word exapostelló which commonly means “sent, “sent forth,” or “sent out”. The prefix ex– means “out of”, “away from,” “from,” or in the like. In this case, the word exapostelló means “to send someone off to a locality or on a mission, send off, send out.”⁷ In short, the verb exapostelló expresses the idea of sending someone from one place to another. John 1:6 uses the simpler word apestalmenos (a form of apostelló), which depending on the context can mean commission without implying movement from one place to another.

6 There was a man having been sent (apestalmenos) from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness about the Light. John 1:6-8 (LSB)

It is true, as James Dunn emphasizes, that the Septuagint uses the word exapostelló several times for God “sending” prophets or judges (e.g., Judg 6:8; 2 Chron 36:15; Ps 105:26 [104:26 LXX]; etc.).⁸

that Yahweh sent a prophet to the sons of Israel, and he said to them, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery. Judges 6:8 (LSB)

And Yahweh, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by the hand of His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His habitation; 2 Chronicles 36:15 (LSB)

He sent Moses His servant,
And Aaron, whom He had chosen. Psalms 105:26 (LSB)

In some of these texts, we may note, there is an emphasis on the prophet going away from where he was to carry out his mission (e.g., Exod 3:12; Judg 6:14; cf. Micah 6:4). In the New Testament, however, when used with persons, the verb always expresses movement away from one place to another. In the one New Testament text that James Dunn cites, “of Paul’s own commissioning in Acts 22:21,”⁹ this meaning is unmistakable: “Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.”

Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance

send away, send forth.

From ek and apostello; to send away forth, i.e. (on a mission) to despatch, or (peremptorily) to dismiss — send (away, forth, out).

see GREEK ek

see GREEK apostello

Link to this: BibleHub

(2) In the context of Galatians 4, Paul clearly does not mean that God waited until the right time to send Jesus out of Nazareth on his itinerant ministry. Paul elaborates on his point by the two participial phrases that follow:

“born of a woman” (genomenon)

“born under the law” (genomenon)

These phrases describe Jesus’ entire mortal life on earth beginning with his birth. The natural meaning of the statement, when these two phrases are read with the use of exapostelló (“sent forth”), is that God sent his Son out from heaven to live as a mortal, specifically as a Jew under the Mosaic law.

There will be a part two to this!

7. BDAG, “exapostelló,” 345-46 (bold in original has been removed).

8. James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 2nd ed. (London: SCM Press, 1989), 39.

9. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 39.