Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?

The New Testament Evidence

James D. G. Dunn

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781611640700
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

To answer the title question effectively requires more than the citing of a few texts; we must first acknowledge that the way to the answer is more difficult than it appears and recognize that the answer may be less straightforward than many would like. The author raises some fascinating yet vexing questions: What is worship? Is the fact that worship is offered to God (or a god) what defines him (or her) as "G/god?" What does the act of worship actually involve? The conviction that God exalted Jesus to his right hand obviously is central to Christian recognition of the divine status of Jesus. But what did that mean for the first Christians as they sought to reconcile God's status and that of the human Jesus? Perhaps the worship of Jesus was not an alternative to worship of God but another way of worshiping God. The questions are challenging but readers are ably guided by James Dunn, one of the world's top New Testament scholars.

1
The language of worship

What does the word ‘worship’ mean? What does the use of the word say about the one ‘worshipped’? The question arises immediately for us since we are concerned with the worship of Jesus. If the first Christians did ‘worship’ Jesus what does that tell us about the status that they accorded to him? One way of defining ‘worship’ would be to confine its application to deity – worship as religious devotion paid to a god, or in the words of The Concise Oxford Dictionary, as ‘reverence paid to God or god’. To ‘worship’ someone or some being would be to affirm their deity, to recognize that the someone or some being is God or a god. The problem, however, is that the term ‘worship’ is also used more widely. In the British legal system judges have regularly been addressed as ‘Your Worship’. In the marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer the words are to be used, ‘With my body I thee worship’. Everyday speech uses phrases like ‘hero worship’. In these cases the language of course signals respect for someone regarded as of higher status and/or worthy of such respect. But such language does not indicate the deity of the one being thus ‘worshipped’.

So we must reflect on the language of worship to help clarify what our central question means, or what its use in relation to Jesus expresses of Jesus’ status or of the worshippers’ regard for him. Both Hurtado and Bauckham marshal a good deal of the evidence regarding the language of worship used in relation to Jesus. But a more extensive and detailed study of the range of meaning of the word(s) usually translated as ‘worship’ in the New Testament seems to be called for, and this should help us to define what the first Christians understood by ‘worship’ more accurately and more fully.

We also need to take account of the range of near synonyms or alternatives to ‘worship’ – reverence, venerate, praise, glorify, adore, express devotion to, and so on. Here we run into a similar quandary. For just as a judge may be addressed as ‘Your Worship’, so in the history of Christianity, members of the clergy have often been addressed as ‘Your reverence’. So too in the Church of England archdeacons have the title ‘Venerable’, and in Roman Catholic tradition ‘venerable’ is used of those whose sanctity is thereby recognized but who have still to be canonized, or recognized as ‘saints’. We must also take note of the earlier debates within Christianity as to whether certain of these near synonyms or alternatives to ‘worship’ could be used in reference to the saints or the Virgin Mary. The clarification required to answer our question satisfactorily would seem to be more extensive than was first apparent.

1.1 To worship

The word most often translated as ‘worship’ in the New Testament is the Greek term proskynein. In turn, in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) proskynein is the regular translation of the Hebrew shachah. Shachah in the Hebrew Bible has the basic meaning of ‘bow down, prostrate oneself, make obeisance before’. It denotes the act of homage before a monarch or a superior, or prostration before God in worship. For example, Jacob prostrates himself before his brother Esau (Gen. 33.3); Joseph’s brothers do obeisance to Joseph, governor of Egypt (Gen. 42.6; 43.28); and various individuals make obeisance before King David.¹ In 1 Chronicles 29.20 the whole assembly (ekklēsia) ‘worshipped (prosekynēsan) the Lord and the king’.² Obeisance is made before angelic beings;³ and above all, obeisance is made before God.⁴ Repeatedly, particularly in Deuteronomy and Isaiah, Israel is forbidden to make obeisance to any other gods or idols;⁵ the Lord God alone was to be worshipped (Deut. 10.20).⁶

Similarly in the New Testament, Bauer-Danker defines proskynein as ‘to express in attitude or gesture one’s complete dependence on or submission to a high authority figure, so “(fall down and) worship, do obeisance to, prostrate oneself before, do reverence to, welcome respectfully”‘.⁷ The Greek term too is used in reference to human beings, the proskynbsis (the matching noun) signifying the acknowledgment of the person’s sovereign power in relation to the one making the proskynbsis. So in Jesus’ parable of the king settling his accounts with his slaves (Matt. 18.23–34) the slave falls down, prostrating himself before the king (18.26). Notably, two verses later, when the forgiven slave then threatens a fellow slave in his debt, the fellow slave ‘falls down’ but does not offer proskynbsis (18.29). In Mark’s account of Jesus’ humiliation by the Roman soldiers, ‘they fell on their knees in homage (prosekynoun) to him’, mocking the reverence that could have been his as ‘king of the Jews’ (Mark 15.18–20).⁸ Strikingly, in his account of the conversion of the centurion Cornelius (Acts 10), Luke writes, ‘falling at his [Peter’s] feet, he [Cornelius] worshipped (proskynbsen) him’. Peter’s response was to lift Cornelius to his feet and gently rebuke him: ‘Stand up; I am only a human being’ (10.25–26). In the letter to Philadelphia in Revelation 3, the promise is made that their opponents will prostrate (proskynēsousin) themselves before the Philadelphians’ feet (Rev. 3.9). The probability is that we should read the accounts of various individuals coming and prostrating themselves before Jesus during his mission in Galilee in the same light: the leper coming to Jesus for his help, prostrating himself (proskynei) before Jesus (Matt. 8.2); the ruler of the synagogue (Jairus) similarly bowing down before Jesus (proskynei) to ask for his help (Matt. 9.18); the Syrophoenician woman making similar appeal on behalf of her daughter (again proskynei) (Matt. 15.25); and the mother of the disciples James and John similarly falling before Jesus (proskynousa) to petition him on behalf of her sons (Matt. 20.20).⁹

In all these cases proskynein clearly implies the appropriate mode for making a petition to one of high authority who could exercise power to benefit the petitioner. That the power could be and probably was thought of as heavenly power in most of the cases cited did not carry with it the implication that the one who exercised the power was divine (note again Peter’s gentle rebuke of Cornelius). But the authority and power was due the deepest respect, the petitioners evidently regarded themselves as wholly dependent on the favour of the one petitioned, and the obeisance expressed that depth of respect and sense of complete dependence.

More typically in the New Testament, proskynein is used of the worship (prostration) due to God, and to God alone. We should recall once again the rebuke of Jesus to the tempter: ‘(You shall) worship (proskynēseis) the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve’ (Matt. 4.10/Luke 4.8).¹⁰ In John’s Gospel Jesus looks for a time when people will worship (proskynēsousin) God, the Father, in Spirit and in truth (John 4.21–24). In Acts we hear of the Ethiopian eunuch who had come to Jerusalem to worship (proskynēsēn) the God of Israel (Acts 8.27). Paul looks for incomers to the assembly of believers to ‘fall on their faces and worship God’ (1 Cor. 14.25). And in the Revelation of John, God is regularly the focus of worship (proskynein).¹¹ Moreover, it is not only false worship of the beast that is rebuked,¹² but also any worship of other than God: the interpreting angel explicitly rebukes proskynbsis offered to him by the seer, and says emphatically, ‘Worship (proskynēson) God’ (Rev. 19.10; 22.8–9).

There are a few other occasions in the New Testament where proskynein is used with Jesus as the object. Curiously, though, these seem to move well beyond the sense of someone acknowledging the authority of someone of higher status. Very striking is the way Hebrews takes Moses’ summons, ‘Let all God’s angels worship (proskynēsatēsan) him’ (Deut. 32.43), and refers it to Christ (Heb. 1.6). Otherwise all the New Testament references to worshipping (proskynein) Jesus appear in the Gospels, principally Matthew, though only at Jesus’ birth and after Jesus’ resurrection. Matthew, we recall, was the writer who used the term proskynein most frequently in reference to several of Jesus’ encounters. But he also uses the term to denote the worship or homage that the wise men brought to the recently born Jesus (Matt. 2.2, 8, 11). And he uses the same term in describing how the women who first encountered the risen Jesus took hold of his feet and worshipped (proskynēsan) him (Matt. 28.9). In the closing scene he similarly recounts that the remaining eleven disciples, when they saw Jesus in Galilee, ‘worshipped (prosekynēsan) him, though some doubted’ (28.17).¹³ Luke had used the term only in his account of Jesus’ temptations (Luke 4.7–8), and his use of it in the final sentence of his Gospel is slightly odd; there is some uncertainty as to what Luke actually wrote (NRSV margin),¹⁴ and, as it stands, the text describes Jesus as carried up to heaven before ‘they [the disciples] worshipped (proskynēsantes) him and returned to Jerusalem …’ (Luke 24.52). Finally, even though the book of Revelation is consistent in talking of worship (proskynein) of God, we should add that in Revelation 5.14 the Lamb is surely included in the worship offered to ‘the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb’.¹⁵

This is indeed intriguing. The number of references to Jesus being worshipped (proskynein) is surprisingly few. The clearest example is of worship offered to Jesus after his resurrection. And although the book of Revelation clearly envisions Jesus (the Lamb) being worshipped (Rev. 5), even the seer prefers to limit his use of proskynein to false worship of the beast and to the worship that should be given to God. Should we say to God alone? Presumably not, given the status of the Lamb. But this is an issue to which we will have to return. In any event, the use of proskynein in the sense of offering worship to Jesus seems to be rather limited. And there is a hint of uncertainty or hesitation as to whether this is the appropriate way to speak of the reverence due to Jesus.

However, this is only the beginning of our inquiry.

1.2 Other vocabulary

Other Greek words are sometimes translated as ‘worship’.

(a) A clo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 - The language of worship
• 2 - The practice of worship
• 3 - Monotheism, heavenly mediators and divine agents
• 4 - The Lord Jesus Christ
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index of biblical and ancient sources
• Index of modern authors
• Index of subjects