Proposition # 12: Jesus shares titles with God. Among these are “King of kings, and Lord of lords,” and “Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.” The Bible calls Jesus our Savior and says that besides God there is no Savior. (Acts 5:31; Isaiah 43:11) Also, there are passages of Scripture which are applied to Yahweh in the Hebrew Scriptures yet applied to Jesus in the Christian Testament.
Response: Daniel, a prophet of God, called Nebuchadnezzar “king of kings.” (Daniel 2:37) Does this make Nebuchadnezzar one person of a triune God? The phrase king of kings, and lord of lords is actually an idiom expressing superlative honor. Even so, in ancient empires it was common for an emperor to have vassal kings under him. Herod the Great was one of the vassal kings under Caesar. So Caesar was a king of kings. Revelation 20:4 speaks of those who reign with Christ; so he, too, is a King of kings. King David of Israel called God his King. So God is also a King of kings. Indeed, He is King above all kings, including David’s descendant, Jesus Christ. — Psalm 5:2; Daniel 4:17
What about “Lord of lords”? In American English lord has come to have an almost exclusively religious connotation which other languages do not have.[1] The Greek word could also be translated into English as master or sir. Sarah referred to Abraham, her husband, as “lord” and the apostle John called one of the elders in Revelation “my lord.”[2] At Acts 2:36 Peter tells the Israelites, “God has made him Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” If Jesus were literally God, it would not have been necessary for God to make him Lord (that is, someone with authority) since he would inherently have that authority. Even so, God is Lord above him. — 1 Peter 3:6; Revelation 7:14; 1 Corinthians 11:3; 15:27
Concerning the use of the title “Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” God compared Himself to the first and last letters of the alphabet, thereby emphasizing that before Him there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Him a God who is able to declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done. He has the first and last word –words being composed of the letters of the alphabet– on what is going to happen. Consequently, the Father is God and was –that is, always has been– God and is coming to execute judgment against all false gods and their followers. — Isaiah 43:10; 46:10; Revelation 1:8
It is fitting that Jesus refers to himself by the letters Alpha and Omega because he is the ‘Word made flesh,’ the embodiment of the prophetic Word and God’s chief spokesman, representing Him fully before the world. — Revelation 22:13; John 1:14, 18; Revelation 19:13
Jesus was the first to be resurrected from the dead to immortal life and the last to be so resurrected by God Himself; all others are resurrected through him. Jesus was the beginning of God’s promises to the world, the Seed destined to bruise that old serpent in the head. And he is the end of all God’s promises for it is through him that all of them are fulfilled. — John 11:25; Genesis 1:15; 2 Corinthians 1:19, 20
As for the title Savior notice Nehemiah 9:27,
“Therefore You [God] gave them [Israel] into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer; and in the time of their suffering they cried to You and You heard them from heaven; and according to Your great mercies You gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies.”
Should we conclude that these saviors are persons in a multiple Godhead? Or should we understand that God provided freedom through these people? Likewise, Jude 25 (NRSV) speaks of “the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Trinitarians cross-reference such passages as 1 Peter 2:4, 7, 8 with Isaiah 8:13, 14. Isaiah speaks of God as “a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over” and Peter speaks of Christ as “a living stone, rejected by men” and “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” The Jews stumbled over the things Jesus taught and the things he did. But notice his words at John 12:49, “For I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has Himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak” and at John 5:19, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever He does, that the Son does likewise.” So were the Jews stumbling over the words and works of Jesus, or were they in reality stumbling over the words and works of the Father?
There are passages in the Hebrew Scriptures which speak of Yahweh, yet the passage is recognized to be Messianic. The trinitarian conclusion that Jesus is God is reached because they have failed to comprehend the Hebraic way of thinking, particularly the concept of agency discussed in an earlier proposition.
[1] For example, both lord and mister are translated into Spanish as Señor.
Literal Greek; the KJV translates this phrase as sir. Most people fail to appreciate that kyrios (the Greek word translated Lord) was also a title of respect in the first century.