Godsey’s Jesus
Vol. XI, No. 9, October 1998
This month’s “Anti-Heritage” consists primarily of a three-paragraph quotation from Kirby Godsey’s 1996 book, When We Talk about God ... Let’s Be Honest (Smyth & Helwys, Macon, GA, pp 120-1). I have excerpted Godsey at some length so that readers will be assured that his words have not been taken out of context. After Godsey’s words I will offer a few critiques, but as you read the passage be alert to the word games he plays, his mixture of truth and untruth, and his posing of false dichotomies. It may also be helpful to keep in mind that Godsey is a former member of the CBF coordinating council and an active leader within the “moderate” movement. Now to turn to Godsey’s words:
“This historical person to be followed was soon changed by his followers into a divine figure to be worshiped. This transformation is largely a mistake. The focus of the Christian faith should not be reconstructed into the worship of Jesus. The earliest church knew Jesus as a simple and plain person who brought the reality of God down to earth. For us, Jesus tends to become the beautiful and wonderful object of religious belief. For the disciples, on the other hand, he was first of all a person and a friend. In their relating to him, Jesus became the Christ.
“The Virgin Birth is more truth than fact. Facts are historical and mundane. Truth transcends the ages. The truth of the Virgin Birth is that God speaks to us through this event in history. Jesus is the historical event. The idea of the Virgin Birth is a way of describing the event. It is like a trumpet blast before a grand entrance. It tells us that something dramatically important is happening here. Jesus' coming is like the wind shear of history. The Jesus-event is a cultural and religious "shear." He represents a radical shift for our religious consciousness. We were not expecting to meet God in this fashion-human and ordinary. We expected fanfare and majesty — an entrance that would seem to befit God.
“Focusing on the Virgin Birth instead of Jesus is like focusing upon the trumpet blast rather than the grand event that it heralds. The Virgin Birth is used by Luke and Matthew to signal the radical character of Jesus' presence. Its status as an actual historical fact is unimportant. Clearly, there are many records of so-called "virgin births" in history. It was certainly not a novel image to denote an extraordinary event. The preoccupation with this virgin birth as a doctrine based in "flesh and blood" distracts us from the truth of the Incarnation. Mark and John make no reference, and the apostle Paul never speaks of the Virgin Birth. When we focus on defending the facts rather than conveying the truth, we are making more of the notion of the Virgin Birth than the earliest records made, and we are making less of the importance of the truth that God is with us.”
In the first quoted paragraph, even the first sentence, Godsey waxes heretical. He clearly says that Jesus was not deity, just “a simple and plain person”, a “person and a friend”. And according to Godsey Jesus’ followers changed Him into “a divine figure to be worshiped.” Godsey ignores Jesus’ own words in John 14:6-10, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” As Jesus noted in the last verse, only God can raise the dead, give sight to one blind from birth, heal all manner of illnesses immediately at a word, or feed thousands with only five small loaves and two fish (Mark 6:38).
“The Virgin Birth is more truth than fact.” Presumably Godsey means that the “story” of the Virgin birth contains spiritual truth but did not actually occur. With high sounding words Godsey denies the immaculate conception, the union of God and man, which Jesus embodied. He emphasizes the importance of Jesus while trying to refute the unique and miraculous event that qualified Jesus for His role as Revelator of God and Savior of men.
In the opening of the third quoted paragraph, Godsey constructs a straw man in his false dichotomy. Why should anyone focus “on the Virgin Birth instead of Jesus”? That one believes in the Virgin Birth does not mean that he does not focus on Jesus. The actual fact would seem to be quite the contrary. Were Jesus merely a good man, even a superbly good man, He could not be Savior ... rather He might then be a model upon which each of us could pattern our own efforts to qualify for admission to heaven, precisely the opposite of what Christ came to proclaim: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6) and "Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:9)
Finally, Godsey plays a numbers game. He notes that Mark and John do not refer to the Virgin Birth and Paul does not mention it either. Of course, Godsey does not acknowledge that neither Mark nor John nor Paul address Jesus’ birth at all; rather, the first time Jesus appears in either Mark or John’s gospel is when he comes to John for baptism. Perhaps even more significant, Godsey does not address the fact that both Matthew and Luke do speak of the Virgin Birth. How many times does God have to say something in His Book before we accept it as truth?
The most appalling fact is that Godsey is president of Mercer University, Macon, GA, one of the two largest "Baptist" universities in the world. In spite of the heresies in his book and the furor it caused, Godsey remains as president of Mercer. May God act to remove him soon.