Michael S. Heiser on the person of Christ
None of the stances fits without misdescribing the figure
Every listed stance was tested against the sources, and each asserts something the figure does not. The reasoning is recorded in full, and it is the content.
"Jesus was the incarnate second Yahweh." — drmsh.com, Two Powers in Heaven. And: "I think the divine plurality of the psalm is part of John's portrayal of Jesus as God, and it is impossible to make that argument if the elohim are mere men."
THE POSITION
Affirms the deity of Christ explicitly and repeatedly, and reads the Old Testament 'second Yahweh' — visible, often in human form — as the one who becomes incarnate. Argues that the human-judges reading of Psalm 82 destroys the argument for Christ's deity in John 10:34-35, so the divine council reading functions for him as a defense of orthodox Christology. He does not work in the two-natures categories the locus uses.
34 Jesus replied, “Is it not written in your Law: ‘I have said you are gods’? 35 If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—
WHAT OTHERS HOLD HERE
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Old Testament and Semitic languages scholar (PhD, Wisconsin, 2004), Scholar-in-Residence at Faithlife/Logos, and host of the Naked Bible Podcast. Argued that the Hebrew Bible assumes a real divine council of lesser elohim under Yahweh, and held that this reading defends rather than threatens the deity of Christ.
Cite this page
"Michael S. Heiser on the person of Christ", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/heiser/christology (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/heiser/christology).