William Tyndale on Divine plurality & the unseen realm
Human judges or rulers addressed as gods by office, not by nature
Mark, the judges are called gods in the scriptures, because they are in God's room, and execute the commandments of God.
THE POSITION
Where Exodus 22 calls the judges "gods", he takes the word as an office: rulers are in God's room and execute his commandments, which is why resisting them is resisting God. That is the human-rulers reading. It is a lean because it is the only such text found, read for the argument about obedience, and he does not take up Psalm 82 or the gods of the nations.
8 If the thief is not found, the owner of the house must appear before the judges to determine whether he has taken his neighbor’s property. 9 In all cases of illegal possession of an ox, a donkey, a sheep, a garment, or any lost item that someone claims, ‘This is mine,’ both parties shall bring their cases before the judges. The one whom the judges find guilty must pay back double to his neighbor.
1 OTHER HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
English translator of the New Testament from Greek and of the Pentateuch from Hebrew, working in exile in the Low Countries, whose wording runs through the King James Version. He was strangled and burned at Vilvoorde in 1536. He was also the first English Protestant theologian of weight, defending justification by faith, the authority of Scripture over the church, and the obedience owed to kings. This entry rests on the Obedience of a Christian Man, the Answer to Sir Thomas More, the Brief Declaration of the Sacraments, the exposition of 1 John and his biblical prologues, all in the Parker Society edition (1848–1850).
Cite this page
"William Tyndale on Divine plurality & the unseen realm", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/tyndale/divine-plurality (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/tyndale/divine-plurality).