There is an ancient Semitic concept that has been lost as far as the usage of it in common affairs goes - the Jewish custom of agency. The concept of agency is that the designated representative of a person is endowed with that person's authority, power, voice, and presence. An analogous modern concept is the idea of an ambassador. However, the modern western concept of an ambassador is a pale imitation of the ancient Semitic concept. A closer analogy in our culture to the Jewish custom of agency would be one who is authorized to act as Power of Attorney, or more strongly, one who is given Enduring Power of Attorney. Such an agent has virtually unlimited powers to act on behalf of the one who appointed him.

 

"The main point of the Jewish law of agency is expressed in the dictum, a person's agent is regarded as the person himself. Therefore any act committed by a duly appointed agent is regarded as having been committed by the principle." (The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, Werblowski, Wigoder)
 

Aspects of Monotheism pg.94 states:
 

"According to the "Son of God Text" from Qumran, when war ceases on earth, all cities will pay homage either to the "Son of God" or to the "people of God." Although homage in this passage involves political submission, worship in the ancient world was often considered analogous to submission to a great king. Each of these figures, to be sure, can be understood as God's agent or representative, so that homage to given to them is ultimately given to God."
 

"In Hebrew thought a patriarch's personality extended through his entire household to his wives, his sons and their wives, his daughters, servants in his household and even in some sense his property. The "one" personality was present in the "many" who were with him. In a specialized sense when the patriarch as lord of his household deputized his trusted servant as his malak (i.e. his messenger or angel) the man was endowed with the authority and resources of his lord to represent him fully and transact business in his name. In Semitic thought this messenger-representative was conceived of as being personally - and in his very words - the presence of the sender" (Christology and the Angel of the LORD by John Cunningham).

 

An example of this concept as it plays out would be Deuteronomy 29:1-6;

 

"Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, "You have seen all that the LORD did in the land of Egypt before your very eyes to Pharaoh and all his servants and to all his land; the great testings your own eyes have seen, and those great signs and wonders. But not even at the present day has the LORD yet given you a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear. I led you for forty years in the desert. Your clothes did not fall from you in tatters nor your sandals from your feet; bread was not your food, nor wine or beer your drink. Thus you should know that I, the LORD, am your God."

 

Notice that as he starts his speech, Moses is speaking to Israel about God. By the time he ends the speech, he is speaking in the first person AS GOD! Everyone understands that Moses is NOT ontologically God. But he IS God's representative, and he has the authority, power, and words of God. Some would say that it is God Himself who is speaking through Moses. I prefer to think of it as Moses speaking as God, or speaking what he has heard from God. Either way, from a functional standpoint, there's not much difference between God and Moses, even though everybody knows Moses is not actually God, he is God's malak - His messenger-representative. As such he embodies the authority and power, indeed the very "presence of the sender."

 

Sometimes, the malak of God - His messenger-representative - is actually called God. The Hebrew word for God is "Elohim."

 

Exodus 7:1:  And the LORD said to Moses, "See, I make you as God (elohim) to Pharaoh; and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.

God also designated Moses as God to Aaron.

Exodus 4:16: He (Aaron) shall speak for you (Moses) to the people; and he shall be a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God (elohim).

 

There are many examples of men being called "elohim" - that is, God/god, in the Bible. Here are a few out of many:

 

• Exodus 22:28: You shall not revile God (elohim), nor curse a ruler (elohim) of your people.

• Exodus 21:6: then his master (elohim) shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost; and his master (elohim) shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.

 

The slave has a god - his master.

 

• 1 Samuel 2:25: If one man sin against another, the god (elohim - translated in many versions as, "judge") shall judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD (Yahweh), who shall entreat for him?

 

The judge is called "god". In English we would say that the judge functions kind of like God concerning his office to administrate justice. The Hebrews didn't have the word, "judge" - they used the word, "god."

 

• Ps 82:1: A Psalm of Asaph. God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods (elohim) he holds judgment:

• Ps 82:6: I say, "You are gods (elohim), sons of the Most High, all of you;

 

Some people believe this is referring to the angels (gods) in a heavenly (divine) council of some kind. While the word "elohim" (gods) is definitely used to refer to angels, this passage is applied to men by Jesus:

 

In John 10:34-35 it says, "Does it not stand written in your Law," replied Jesus, "`I said, you are gods'? If those to whom God's word was addressed are called gods (and the Scripture cannot be annulled)..."

 

Here Jesus says God himself has called certain people - human beings - "gods" - and appeals to Scripture for authority.

 

Most people think that it was Yahweh Himself that appeared to Moses in the burning bush. It was not. It was God's malak - His messenger-representative - known as the Angel of the Lord.

 

"There an angel of the LORD appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush ... When the LORD saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him from the bush ... But Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh..." (Exodus 3:2-4, 11).

 

Notice that the being in the flaming bush was NOT God, it was an angel, yet it says, "God called" and "Moses said to God..." The angel was God's malak - His messenger-representative. This understanding is confirmed by Stephen in Acts 7:30:

 

"Forty years later, an angel appeared to him in the desert near Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight."

 

See also: Acts 7:35 & Acts 7:53:

 

"This Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, Who appointed you ruler and judge? God sent as both ruler and deliverer, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush."

 

"You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it."

 

The law was given to Moses through angels. The whole episode on Mount Sinai was God speaking through angels - or angels speaking for God. Acts 7:38 states:

 

"It was he who, in the assembly in the desert, was with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our ancestors, and he received living utterances to hand on to us."

 

Remember, the distinction between the malak of God and God Himself becomes blurred in speech. This is easily seen in the examples above. Moses begins by speaking OF Yahweh and winds up speaking AS Yahweh. It is explicitly stated that the being in the burning bush is an angel, yet it says, "Moses said to God..." When Moses asks, "Who shall I say sent me?" the angel says, "Tell them I AM sent you..." Does this mean the Angel's name is I AM? No, the angel is speaking as I AM's malak - His messenger-representative.

 

The malak is invested with the authority - the name - of the sender.

 

"See I am sending you an angel before you, to guard you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared. Be attentive to him and heed his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not forgive your sin for my name is in him. If you heed his voice and carry out all I tell you, I will be an enemy to your enemies" (Exodus 23:20-22).

Many translations say, "My authority resides in him." To the ancient Semitic, name = authority. Notice that heeding the voice of the angel = carry out all I (God) tell you.

 

The Jews believed that it was normal to address the person who is sent on behalf of someone else as that person himself. The representative speaks many times in the first person, and it is common to address the representative as the person who sent him. An excellent example is in Esdras 5:43-56 (Apocrypha) where Ezra questions God's spokesman, the angel Uriel, as though he were both creator and judge. Ezra uses the same style of address to Uriel ("my lord, my master") as he uses in direct petition to God. This phenomenon is seen all throughout the Bible. Jacob wrestled with an angel, and yet he said he had seen God "face-to-face". The first 3 chapters of Zachariah also illustrate the same. The Angel of the Lord is sometimes having a conversation with God, then sometimes he says, "Thus saith the Lord..." and speaks for God. Sometimes he simply speaks as God in the first person.

 

So the term "God" was applied to THE God, Yahweh, the creator of Heaven and Earth, who is ONE. The term "God" was also applied to men, and to angels. It was applied to kings, rulers, judges, and the like. Furthermore, the concept of the malak - the messenger-representative being invested with the authority, power, and speech - embodying the presence of the sender - relates to how an ancient Semite would think and speak.

 

The picture which John presents is of Jesus as the Father's agent, drawn in contemporary Jewish terms of the shaliah...the one sent (cf. the parable of 13:16, 'an agent is not greater than he who sent him'), The agent is wholly there to represent his principle, speaking for him, acting for him, doing nothing 'on his own account' but everything with the accreditation (5:43), seal (6:27) and authorization (12:49) of him who sent him. There is no sense in which the agent has chosen his master, but always the other way round (cf. 15:16). Yet according to the halakhic rules the sender had to authorize the agent by transferring his own rights and property concerned to the agent (cf> John 6:37; 17:7). Under the commission the two parties were completely ad ideum (cf. John 10:30-38), so that whether the agent acted or negotiated in his own name or that of his principle was a matter of indifference. (John A.T. Robinson, The Priority of John, p. 350.)

 

Jesus becomes the Son of God by adoption or transformation through the divine power that descends upon him, and he becomes an instrument of revelation and salvation. In this way, Jesus could be called "god" because he would represent God functionally, but he would not be identical with God ontologically. Such a concept of functional identity is known in Judaism as the institution of shaliach. (Marian Hillar, From Logos to Trinity: The Evolution of Religious Beliefs from Pythagoras to Tertullian, page 129.)

 

(A very good exposition of shaliah can be found here.)

 

It is in the context of this very Semitic paradigm that the biblical "Deity-language" applied to Jesus should be understood. All the Biblical writers were of that world. They had the same paradigm, the categories of thought, and the idioms of speech that we find all throughout the ancient Semitic world, including the Old Testament.

 

Moses, speaking as God's malak, says of the messiah,

 

"I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kinsmen, and will put my words in his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him. If any man will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it." (Deuteronomy 18:18)

 

In this same context, Moses says, (i.e. God says) that this particular malak who speaks in Yahweh's name, who has Yahweh's words in his mouth, will be inerrant. (Deuteronomy 18:22)

 

 

• "For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God (John 3:34).

• "For I do not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it" (John 12:49).

• "And He has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man" (John 5:27).

• "Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of God and the authority of His Anointed" (Revelation 12:10).

• "But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins ... When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to men" Matthew 9:6-7).

 

Can you see how the concept of the malak is presuppositionally at work here? Jesus is the perfect malak. He ONLY speaks what he hears the Father speak, he ONLY does what he sees the Father doing, he perfectly represents the Father, who has invested him with His authority, power, words and acts, and Jesus' representation of God is inerrant.

 

John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known."

 

There is an interesting textual variant that reads, "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known."

 

This variant would indeed be understood as calling Jesus "God" - but he is not the same as the God-who-has-never-been-seen. Jesus is "God" in the sense that he is the perfect malak of the God-who-has-never-been-seen. He has been sent by God, and as God's perfect messenger-representative, being invested with the authority, power, and speech - embodying the presence of the sender - Jesus has made God known. And in keeping with the ancient Semitic paradigm expounded above, Jesus is called, "God."