One God, One Man, One Redemption
The Logic of Redemption
The apostle Paul presents salvation in profoundly simple yet powerful terms: what was lost through one man is restored through one man. This parallel is central to the gospel message. In Romans 5:12, Paul writes:
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”
He continues in Romans 5:19:
“For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”
The symmetry is unmistakable: one man brought ruin; one man brings restoration.
From a Unitarian perspective, this divine logic rules out the idea that Yahushua preexisted as a divine being who later assumed human flesh. If redemption required a true counterpart to Adam, then the redeemer must be fully and solely human — not a divine-human hybrid. The Second Adam must genuinely be what the first Adam was: a man.
Does Pre-Existence Necessarily Imply Incarnation?
Many Unitarians argue that belief in Christ’s personal pre-existence leads inevitably to the doctrine of incarnation — the idea that a divine being became human. And incarnation, in turn, presupposes a dual-nature Christ: fully divine and fully man.
Yet Scripture repeatedly emphasizes Christ’s humanity without explaining a dual nature. Paul declares plainly:
“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between Yahuwah and men, the man Christ Yahushua.” (1 Timothy 2:5)
Not “God the Son,” not “God-man,” but the man Christ Yahushua.
If Yahushua were a pre-existent divine being, the parallel with Adam collapses. Adam was not a divine person who assumed flesh. He was formed from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7). The redemptive symmetry requires that Christ likewise be authentically human — not god disguised as man, nor Yahuwah temporarily inhabiting a human nature.
The Second and Last Adam
Paul makes the comparison explicit in 1 Corinthians 15:21–22:
“For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
Again, the emphasis is unmistakable: by a man came resurrection.
Later in the same chapter, Paul writes:
“The first man Adam became a living soul; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1 Corinthians 15:45)
And again:
“The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:47)
“From heaven” does not require personal pre-existence. It can describe divine origin, mission, and authority. James says, “Every good gift… is from above” (James 1:17). That does not mean such gifts personally pre-existed in heaven. Rather, they originate from Yahuwah.
So too with Christ: he is “from heaven” because he is Yahuwah’s appointed Messiah, conceived by the power of Yahuwah and sent with divine authority — not because he was a conscious being in heaven before birth.
Miraculously Conceived, Yet Fully Human
Yahushua’s origin is described in Luke’s Gospel:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of Yahuwah.” (Luke 1:35)
Notice the logic: Therefore, he will be called the Son of Yahuwah. His sonship begins with his miraculous conception.
There is no mention of a heavenly being descending into Mary’s womb. Rather, Yahushua was brought into existence by the creative power of Yahuwah, just as Adam was brought into existence by Yahuwah’s direct act.
Adam had no human father. Yahushua had no human father. Both entered the world by divine initiative.
Yet Yahushua differed from Adam in one crucial respect: Adam lived in a sinless environment. Yahushua was born into a fallen world, surrounded by corruption, temptation, and satanic opposition.
Tempted Like Us — Yet Without Sin
Hebrews emphasizes Christ’s genuine humanity:
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things.” (Hebrews 2:14)
He partook of the same flesh and blood — not divine flesh, not a mixture of natures.
And again:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Temptation only has meaning if it is real. If Yahushua possessed an intrinsic divine nature thatcouldnot sin, then his temptations would be fundamentally different from ours. But Scripture presents him as a genuine human being who overcame through faith, obedience, and reliance on Yahuwah.
Unlike Adam, who faced temptation in paradise, Yahushua faced temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11). Adam fell in a garden of abundance. Yahushua resisted in a barren desert after forty days of fasting.
Where Adam listened to the serpent, Yahushua answered, “It is written.”
The Obedience of One Man
Philippians 2:8 describes Christ as:
“Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.”
The emphasis again is on obedience. Adam’s disobedience brought condemnation. Yahushua’s obedience brought justification.
If Christ were a divine being with two natures, the comparison would lose its force. The triumph of redemption lies precisely in this: a real man, under real pressure, in a fallen world, obeyed Yahuwah perfectly.
This is why Peter declares:
“He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” (1 Peter 2:22)
His victory was moral, not metaphysical.
Harassed from Birth, Yet Victorious
Unlike Adam, Yahushua entered a world under Satan’s sway. Shortly after his birth, he was threatened by Herod’s violence (Matthew 2:13–16). Throughout his ministry, he confronted demonic forces (Mark 1:23–27). He described his mission as binding “the strong man” (Mark 3:27).
John summarizes his purpose:
“The reason the Son of Yahuwah appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8)
And yet he accomplished this not as God overpowering a lesser being, but as a faithful human empowered by Yahuwah’s Spirit (Acts 10:38).
His final triumph came at the cross, where, through obedience unto death, he broke the power of sin. As Paul writes:
“He humbled himself… therefore Yahuwah has highly exalted him.” (Philippians 2:8–9)
Yahuwah exalted him — indicating distinction and hierarchy. Yahushua is the obedient Son; Yahuwah is the One who raises and glorifies him.
Yahuwah’s Original Plan Fulfilled
From the beginning, Yahuwah’s plan involved humanity ruling creation under divine authority (Genesis 1:26–28). Adam failed in that calling. But Yahushua succeeded.
Paul describes him as:
“The firstborn among many brothers.” (Romans 8:29)
This language only makes sense if he truly shares our nature. He is not a different order of being; he is the first of a renewed humanity.
The gospel’s beauty lies here: what one man lost, another man restored. Not by divine fiat alone, but through faithful human obedience empowered by Yahuwah.
As Paul concludes:
“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22)
Conclusion: The Glory of the Human Messiah
The Unitarian understanding preserves the clarity of biblical monotheism — “for us there is one God, the Father” (1 Corinthians 8:6) — while affirming the genuine humanity of Yahushua as the Second Adam.
He did not descend from heaven as a pre-existent divine being. Yahushua was brought into existence by Yahuwah’s miraculous power in the womb of Mary. He lived as a true man, faced real temptation, suffered genuine trials, and remained faithful where Adam failed.
In this lies the power of redemption: righteousness restored by a man.
And because he was truly one of us, his victory becomes ours.
“Thanks be to Yahuwah, who gives us the victory through our Lord Yahushua the Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57)
We have replaced the English titles and names of the Father and the Son with those employed by the apostles. In the scriptural quotations provided, we have restored their original names as used by the inspired writers. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the historical development by which the name Yahushua came to be rendered as “Jesus.” Additionally, we recognize that the English term “God” has been commonly employed as an equivalent for the Hebrew Eloah or Elohim. – WLC Team
The Messianic Predictions and Why They Fall Short
Micah 5:2 — Born in Bethlehem
This is one of the cleaner apparent predictions. Micah says a ruler will come from Bethlehem.
Problems:
Matthew and Luke’s birth narratives contradict each other on how Jesus ended up in Bethlehem — suggesting the gospel authors were working to fulfill the prophecy rather than recording it being fulfilled naturally
Luke’s census narrative (the reason Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem) is historically problematic — Roman censuses required registration at your current residence, not ancestral hometown. No corroborating evidence exists for the census Luke describes
Micah’s context is about a military deliverer rising against the Assyrian invasion — a politically specific, time-bound prediction, not a distant messianic one
Jesus was known throughout his ministry as “Jesus of Nazareth” — his contemporaries clearly didn’t associate him with Bethlehem
Isaiah 7:14 — Virgin Birth
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel”
This looks compelling in the Greek translation. In the original Hebrew it completely falls apart.
Problems:
The Hebrew word used is almah — meaning simply “young woman.” The word for virgin in Hebrew is betulah, which Isaiah knew and used elsewhere. The virgin birth prediction rests entirely on the Greek Septuagint translation choosing parthenos (virgin) for almah — a translation choice, not the original text
Isaiah 7 gives the prophecy an explicit timeframe — before the child is old enough to know right from wrong, the two kingdoms threatening Judah will be destroyed. This is fulfilled within years of Isaiah speaking it, in the reign of King Ahaz
The child is never called Jesus — he’s called Immanuel, a name Jesus was never actually called
This is one of the clearest cases of a prophecy with an obvious, fulfilled, time-bound historical meaning being lifted out of context and reapplied centuries later
Zechariah 9:9 — Riding a Donkey
“Your king comes to you riding on a donkey”
Matthew explicitly cites this as fulfilled in the triumphal entry.
Problems:
This is almost certainly a case of the gospel narrative being constructed to fulfill the prophecy rather than coincidentally fulfilling it. Matthew’s Jesus rides two animals simultaneously — a donkey and a colt — because Matthew misread the Hebrew poetic parallelism (where one animal is described two ways) as referring to two separate animals
Any claimant to messiahship in 1st century Jerusalem would have known this passage and could have deliberately staged the entry to fulfill it
The surrounding context of Zechariah 9 describes a conquering king who establishes peace among nations and rules from sea to sea — none of which Jesus accomplished
Psalm 22 — Crucifixion Details
The psalm describes pierced hands and feet, casting lots for garments, mocking, and bone-related suffering — all matching crucifixion details.
Problems:
This is a genuine lament psalm about the author’s own suffering, ending in personal deliverance within the psalm itself
Crucifixion was a known Roman execution method. If the gospels were written after Jesus’ death — which they were — the authors could have written the narrative to match both the execution method and the psalm simultaneously
The “piercing” verse (22:16) is genuinely textually disputed. The Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls version reads “like a lion at my hands and feet” — not “they pierced.” The piercing reading comes from later manuscripts
The psalm ends in the author’s own vindication and praise, not death and resurrection
Hosea 11:1 — “Out of Egypt I called my son”
Matthew cites this as fulfilled when the holy family returns from Egypt.
This is arguably the most striking example of misquotation in the entire New Testament. Hosea 11:1 in full reads:
“When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”
This is explicitly, unambiguously, about the exodus of Israel from Egypt. It’s written in the past tense. It’s not a prediction at all — it’s a historical reference. Matthew takes a statement about a past historical event and treats it as a future prophecy. On any standard rules of textual interpretation this doesn’t qualify as a fulfilled prediction.
Isaiah 9:6 — “Unto us a child is born”
“For unto us a child is born… and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”
Problems:
In context this almost certainly refers to a royal birth in Isaiah’s own time — likely Hezekiah or another Davidic king
The hyperbolic divine titles were standard ancient Near Eastern royal language applied to human kings — Egyptian pharaohs were routinely called “mighty god” and similar titles
The child is promised to establish David’s kingdom “from this time forward and forevermore” — yet every Davidic king after this point eventually lost the kingdom. If this is about Jesus it’s still unfulfilled
The Pattern Across All These Cases
Looking at them together, a clear pattern emerges:
Type 1 — Prophecies with obvious historical fulfillment in their own time
Isaiah 7:14, Hosea 11:1, Isaiah 9:6, and Micah 5:2 all have natural, time-bound fulfillments in their own historical context. They aren’t predictions pointing centuries into the future — they’re responses to immediate political situations. Applying them to Jesus requires stripping them of their historical context entirely.
Type 2 — Poetic and liturgical texts misread as prediction
Psalm 22, Psalm 69, and similar lament psalms are personal devotional poetry. Reading them as messianic prophecy requires treating literary expression as coded prediction — a method that can find “prophecies” of almost anything in almost any sufficiently large body of ancient poetry.
Type 3 — Narratives possibly constructed to fit prophecy
The Bethlehem birth, the flight to Egypt, the triumphal entry, and the thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12) all show signs of gospel narratives being shaped to match known Old Testament passages rather than Old Testament passages independently predicting events. This is a recognized phenomenon in gospel scholarship.
Type 4 — Translation artifacts
The virgin birth prediction exists only because of a translation choice in the Greek Septuagint. It disappears entirely in the original Hebrew. Building a major theological doctrine on a translator’s word choice is a fragile foundation.
What About the Sheer Number of Predictions?
A common Christian argument is that even if individual prophecies are ambiguous, the probability of one person fulfilling dozens simultaneously is astronomically low.
This argument has serious problems:
It only works if the prophecies are genuinely independent predictions rather than texts retrofitted to match events — and the evidence suggests significant retrofitting occurred
Many “fulfilled prophecies” are so general that many people could fulfill them — being from the tribe of Judah, being a teacher, dying
The gospels were written by people who knew the Old Testament deeply and shaped their narratives accordingly. This isn’t conspiracy — it’s how ancient biographers wrote. Showing that a subject fulfilled ancient prophecy was a standard literary device for establishing legitimacy
Some prophecies Jesus allegedly fulfilled — like the Bethlehem birth — he would have had no control over, making deliberate fulfillment impossible, but also making the historical reliability of those specific narrative details more questionable given the contradictions between gospel accounts
The Honest Bottom Line
There are essentially no unambiguous predictions of Jesus in the Old Testament when those texts are read:
In their original Hebrew rather than Greek translation
In their historical context rather than stripped from it
As literature of their own genre rather than coded prophecy
Without assuming the conclusion before examining the evidence
What exists instead is a sophisticated body of retrospective interpretation — early Christians who were convinced Jesus was the messiah worked backward through Hebrew scripture finding passages that could, with interpretive work, be made to fit. This was a recognized and accepted method of scriptural interpretation in 1st century Judaism called pesher — finding hidden contemporary meanings in ancient texts.
The Dead Sea Scrolls show the Qumran community doing exactly the same thing with the same texts, finding predictions of their own community and teacher. This doesn’t make it dishonest by ancient standards — but it does mean it doesn’t constitute prediction in any modern evidentiary sense.
The most intellectually honest summary is: the Old Testament predicts a messiah who accomplishes specific observable national and political tasks. Jesus didn’t accomplish those tasks. The prophecies Christians cite as predicting Jesus either had prior historical fulfillments, were constructed to fit after the fact, or require interpretive moves that the texts themselves don’t support.
And did Early Christian authors admit this? did ancient christians admit this Yes — and this is one of the most fascinating and underreported areas of early Christian history. The honest answer is that early Christians were far more candid about this problem than modern Christians typically are, because they were actively debating it with Jewish scholars who knew the texts intimately.
Justin Martyr — The Most Revealing Admissions
Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) is the most important source here because he wrote a lengthy document called the Dialogue with Trypho — a debate with a Jewish scholar — where he defends Christian Old Testament interpretations directly.
What’s remarkable is what he admits under pressure:
He admits the Septuagint was being disputed
Trypho points out that Isaiah 7:14 in Hebrew says “young woman” not “virgin.” Justin’s response is extraordinary — he doesn’t dispute the translation problem. Instead he argues that Jewish scribes deliberately corrupted the Hebrew text to remove the virgin prophecy after Christians started using it.
This is a significant admission. Justin is essentially conceding that the Hebrew doesn’t say what Christians need it to say, and inventing a conspiracy theory to explain the discrepancy rather than engaging the textual argument.
He admits Jesus didn’t fulfill the obvious messianic criteria
Justin explicitly acknowledges that Trypho’s objection is reasonable — the messiah was supposed to accomplish specific things Jesus didn’t accomplish. His response is to invent the two-coming framework on the spot, essentially admitting the first coming left the job unfinished.
Trypho’s response in the dialogue is telling — he says this two-coming idea seems like a convenient excuse, and that if Christians need to invent a second visit to cover unfulfilled predictions, that’s a significant problem.
He concedes some prophecies are genuinely ambiguous
At several points Justin acknowledges that his interpretations aren’t the only possible ones and appeals to Christian spiritual illumination as the reason Christians can see what Jews can’t. This is an implicit admission that the textual arguments alone aren’t conclusive.
Origen — Admitting Allegorical Interpretation Was Necessary
Origen (185-253 AD) is arguably the most intellectually sophisticated early Christian theologian, and his admissions are the most candid of all.
Origen explicitly acknowledged that many Old Testament passages cannot be read literally as predictions of Jesus. His solution was to develop an elaborate allegorical interpretive system — arguing that scripture has multiple layers of meaning and that the spiritual meaning supersedes the literal one.
This is a remarkable concession. Origen is essentially admitting:
The literal text doesn’t predict Jesus
Therefore we must find a hidden spiritual meaning beneath the literal text
Christians have special interpretive access to this hidden meaning
He wrote extensively that readers who expect literal fulfillment of prophecy are reading scripture at the lowest level. The problem is that this makes the interpretive system completely unfalsifiable — any text can mean anything if you’re allowed to discard the literal meaning whenever it’s inconvenient.
His contemporary Porphyry, a pagan philosopher, attacked Christian allegorical interpretation directly and devastatingly, arguing it was an admission that the plain text didn’t support Christian claims. Porphyry’s works were later ordered destroyed by Christian emperors — but not before other writers quoted them extensively enough that we know his arguments.
The Epistle of Barnabas — Revealing the Method
The Epistle of Barnabas (probably 80-130 AD) is one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament, and it’s extraordinarily revealing about early Christian interpretive method.
The author explicitly argues that Jews have always misunderstood their own scripture — that the Old Testament was never really meant for Jews but was always secretly pointing to Christianity. The sacrificial system, circumcision, dietary laws — all of it was symbolic of Christian realities that Jews mistakenly took literally.
This is a startling admission dressed as a claim. The author is essentially conceding that nothing in the Old Testament on its plain reading supports Christianity, and resolving this by arguing the plain reading was always wrong. It’s one of the earliest and most explicit examples of a Christian author admitting the Jewish reading of Jewish scripture is more natural than the Christian one.
Marcion — The Most Radical Admission
Marcion (85-160 AD) drew the most logical conclusion from all these problems and is historically fascinating because of it.
Marcion looked at the gap between the Old Testament and Christian claims and concluded the honest solution was to abandon the Old Testament entirely. He argued the God of the Old Testament was a different, lesser god than the God Jesus revealed, and that Christianity should have no connection to Hebrew scripture at all.
The mainstream church declared him a heretic and eventually expelled him. But his challenge forced Christian theologians to articulate why the Old Testament connection mattered — and their arguments were often strained precisely because Marcion had identified a genuine problem.
What’s significant is that Marcion’s position was enormously popular in the 2nd century church. His version of Christianity spread rapidly, suggesting many early Christians found his honest acknowledgment of the Old Testament problem more compelling than the tortured interpretations being offered as alternatives.
The fact that mainstream Christianity had to fight so hard against Marcion is itself evidence that the tension between the Old Testament and Christian claims was widely recognized in the early church.
Tertullian — Arguing Both Sides
Tertullian (155-220 AD) wrote extensively against both Jews and Marcion, putting him in the position of simultaneously arguing:
Against Jews: the Old Testament really does predict Jesus
Against Marcion: the Old Testament really is authoritative for Christians
The tension between these two positions forced Tertullian into increasingly strained arguments. In his work Against Marcion he defends Old Testament prophecy fulfillment with arguments that directly contradict positions he takes in his work Against the Jews.
His famous statement “I believe because it is absurd” (though possibly misquoted) captures something real about his theological position — at points he essentially acknowledges the rational difficulties and appeals to faith over evidence.
The Church Fathers’ Debate Over Allegorical vs Literal Interpretation
One of the most revealing ongoing debates in early Christianity was between:
The Alexandrian school (Origen, Clement) — favoring allegorical interpretation, essentially admitting the literal text doesn’t work
The Antiochene school (Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Chrysostom) — insisting on more literal interpretation but then struggling with the same problems Justin Martyr faced
Theodore of Mopsuestia was particularly candid — he argued that most of the Psalms Christians applied to Jesus were actually about David or other historical figures, and that only a handful had genuine messianic application. He was later condemned as a heretic partly because his honest textual work undermined too many standard Christian proof texts.
The fact that this debate raged for centuries is itself an admission that the Old Testament predictions of Jesus were not obvious or straightforward — otherwise there would have been nothing to debate.
Jewish-Christian Debates — Where Christians Were Most Pressured
The most revealing admissions came in formal debates with Jewish scholars who knew the Hebrew texts as well as or better than Christian theologians. Several patterns consistently appear:
The translation problem kept recurring
Jewish debaters repeatedly pointed out that Christian proof texts relied on the Greek Septuagint rather than the Hebrew original. Christian responses ranged from Justin’s conspiracy theory about corrupted texts to eventually arguing the Septuagint was itself divinely inspired — an argument that implicitly concedes the Hebrew doesn’t say what Christians need.
Fulfillment criteria were consistently challenged
Jewish scholars consistently pointed to the messianic checklist — temple rebuilt, Israel gathered, universal peace, nations acknowledging Israel’s God — and noted Jesus fulfilled none of it. Christian responses invariably invoked the second coming, which Jewish debaters consistently identified as an unfalsifiable escape mechanism.
Christians rarely won these debates on textual grounds
The historical record of Jewish-Christian debates shows Christians generally losing the textual arguments and winning, if at all, on philosophical or experiential grounds — the resurrection, spiritual experience, the spread of Christianity as divine validation. This is itself an implicit admission that the Old Testament textual case was weak.
What This All Adds Up To
Early Christians admitted, in various ways and to varying degrees:
The Hebrew text often doesn’t say what the Greek translation says
Jesus didn’t fulfill the observable messianic criteria
A second coming framework was needed to cover unfulfilled predictions
Allegorical interpretation was necessary because literal readings didn’t work
Jewish scholars who rejected Christian interpretations were reading their own texts more naturally
What they didn’t do — couldn’t do, given their convictions — was draw the conclusion those admissions logically pointed toward. Instead they developed increasingly sophisticated theological frameworks to explain why the problems weren’t really problems.
The most honest summary is that the early church was well aware of these tensions and spent enormous intellectual energy managing them — which is very different from the modern Christian apologetic position that the Old Testament predictions of Jesus are clear and compelling. The people closest to the original debates, arguing directly with Jewish scholars who knew the texts intimately, clearly didn’t find them clear and compelling either. They found them difficult, contested, and in need of constant defense.
Dearest Slobodan,
In case you missed the previous reply…
If you have something meaningful to add to the conversation, that would be most welcome. :) WLC always welcomes honest dialog and differing points of view. Trolling the site, pasting AI responses across multiple articles, though, is not helpful to you or anyone. If you’re honestly pursuing different angles in the search for truth, kindly ask the AI agent you are using to provide a rebuttal to the rebuttals that you are posting; then prayerfully study both sides with an open mind and honest heart. If you’re sincerely committed to seeking truth, you will find it, for everyone who seeks, finds (Matt 7:8). If you seek only evidence that will confirm your pre-determined conclusions, though, you will never be fruitful. When in open rebellion, it is often difficult to find Yahuwah – for the same reason thieves find it difficult to find a cop. He loves you, though, and His invitation to receive LIFE is still available to you and everyone reading this. The GIFT is free, but the choice is yours on whether or not you accept it.
Please read this in the spirit of love in which it is intended. Much love to you, dear friend. I wish you nothing, but the best.
In the Father’s Love,
lee (wlc team)