Jesus is the modern name for the Jewish Rabbi who lived and taught in the first century CE. His original name was Yeshua or Yahoshua, Aramaic for “Yahweh saves.” Yeshua was a common name in ancient Judea. His name was transformed into “iesus” in the Greek texts from which the New Testament canon was translated. The “Y” in the name was dropped in the 16th century when the letter “J” came into the English language, making the final pronunciation of the name, “Jesus.” People are revisiting Yeshua’s teachings with the realization that he was not a god who insisted that people worship him. Instead, he revealed messages that will make a difference for humanity if we hear and learn from them. In this series of videos, I give answers to questions posed in the comments about Yeshua from readers on Seek Reality Online.
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The question we received from a Seek Reality Online member is, “What is Jesus referring to when he says “my Father”?
Yeshua is referring to God the Father. He refers to him as “Abba,” a familial, intimate name for a father in Aramaic, like our “Daddy” or “Pappa” in English. Understand that the conception of Yeshua as the only begotten son of God as his father grew up in the church as the church deified Yeshua into a position he did not ask for or want.
The relationship of Yeshua to the Source or Ground of all Being that we call God was hotly debated in the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. Bishops from all over the Roman Empire were assembled by the emperor Constantine to iron out some issues in the newly evolved Christian church that were causing division. Constantine saw a unified Christian church as a way to bring unity to his empire that was falling apart. Promoting Christianity over the other religions current in the Roman Empire was a political, not theological or religious action.
Some of the bishops, led by Arius, a priest in Alexandria, insisted that Yeshua was created by God the Father, making him of a substance different from God, or homoiousios in the Greek. God the Father alone was eternal, Arius and his supporters asserted, and Yeshua the Son was created or begotten by the Father, and thus had a defined point of origin and was subordinate to the Father. Those supporting this view repeated the phrase “There was a time when He was not,” meaning he did not exist at the beginning as God, but was created by God later.
Other bishops, led by Archbishop Alexander of Alexandria, insisted that Yeshua was always one with God the Father, from the beginning of time, or homoousios in the Greek, meaning of one substance. Alexander’s faction won the day. Yeshua was proclaimed to be one substance with God the Father. The Nicean Creed describes their conclusion. It clearly places Yeshua into a trinity of one God in three persons. We can see the emphatic statement in the final decision that is repeated in the Nicean Creed in different ways to emphasize that Yeshua was one with God the Father from the beginning of time:
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
But that conclusion is not born out in the canonical gospels or Nag Hammadi gospels discovered in 1945. In the canonical gospels, Yeshua refers most often to “OUR father,” and only rarely to “MY father.” In John, he referred to “my Father and your Father: “”Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” He refers to the disciples as brothers from their mutual Father. In Matthew he refers to “your Father in Heaven.”
In other words, he is not referring to the church’s current Trinity conception of God the Father, Yeshua, the Son who is equally God, and the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit. The notion of God in three persons, wholly God without division and wholly three separate persons, has always been baffling and rarely understood to Christians. Instead, Yeshua repeatedly said God is the intimate, loving Father of all of us, including Yeshua. We have the same relationship to God as Yeshua did. In that sense, we are all brothers and sisters. No one is of a higher relationship to God, not priests, not popes, not ministers, and not Yeshua.
Yeshua is our brother, not our God.
