Does Paul say that every tongue will “acknowledge” Jesus as YHWH?

In his encomium in praise of the exalted Christ in Philippians 2:6-11, Paul says that “in the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue acknowledge (exomologēsētai) that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10-11*). Interpreters of the Early High Christology school often point out that in Isaiah 45:23 these words have reference to YHWH. So has Paul hereby included Jesus in the divine identity?

• Is Jesus Yahweh? Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess…

In the Greek Old Testament and in other Hellenistic-Jewish works, exomologeō is frequently used, notably in the Psalms, with God or the name of God as the direct object, with the sense of “acknowledging” or “confessing” God. For example:

Acknowledge (exomologeisthe) the Lord; call on him by his name; make known his practices among peoples. (1 Chron. 16:8 LXX)

I will acknowledge (exomologēsomai) you, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. (Ps. 9:2 LXX).

Does Paul, therefore, mean that Jesus is the fully divine object of such acknowledgement? Are the nations expected to call upon Jesus by the name YHWH/Kyrios, acknowledging him to be God? The question was raised in this comment.

Coincidentally…

Coincidentally, a piece was published today on the Biblical Archaeology Society site about the Frankfurt Silver Inscription, dated 230-270, the earliest evidence for the presence of Christianity north of the Alps. The Latin inscription was found in a tiny amulet on a burial subject and needed to be digitally unwrapped. The Jewish-apocalyptic context of the encomium has long been forgotten, but, with the notable insertion of “the Son of God,” the use of Philippians 2:10-11 coheres with the interpretation I outline here:

[In the name?] of St. Titus. Holy, holy, holy! In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God! The lord of the world resists to the best of his [ability?] all seizures(?)/setbacks(?). The god(?) grants well-being Admission. This rescue device(?) protects the person who surrenders to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, since before Jesus Christ bend all knees: the heavenly ones, the earthly and the subterranean, and every tongue confess.

So here we go…

1. The use of exomologeō in the Septuagint with God or the name of God as the direct object is not exclusive; there are a few exceptions, where something or someone other than God is acknowledged.

• Jehoshaphat “stationed harp–singers and singers of praise to acknowledge (exomologeisthai) and praise the holy things as they went out ahead of the army” (2 Chron. 20:21 LXX).
• The king may also be the object of acknowledgment or confession: Athaliah “heard the sound of the people, those who ran and acknowledged (exomologoumenōn) and praised the king and approached the king in the house of the Lord” (2 Chron. 23:12 LXX).
• Daniel acknowledges (exomologoumenos) his sins and the sins of the people before God (Dan. 9:20 LXX).

2. In Hellenistic-Jewish writings, the word is often used for other types of confession, especially the confession of sins.

• Josephus also has people acknowledging (exomologoumenōn) their sins (Ant. 8:129). A person may confess (exomologoumenos) himself to be someone’s slave (Ant. 16:156), or to be thirsty (War 6:318); he may acknowledge his folly (War 1:625) or an agreement made in order to betray someone (War 2:602). Certain Jews “confessed (exomologēsanto) what was true, that they were the slaves, the scum, and the spurious and abortive offspring of our nation” (War 5:443).
• Similarly in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: “to you I will confess my sins, and to you I will reveal my lawless deeds” (Asenath 12:3); Nebuchadnezzar “made a confession” of his impiety before the Lord (Lives of the Prophets 4:13-14).
• Philo discusses in some detail the act of confessing in various respects to God (Alleg. 1:80, 82; 2:95; 3:26).

3. What Paul says is not, “every tongue will acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ”; it is that “every tongue will acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.” It is a fact that is publicly acknowledged—perhaps in a cultic context—not a divine person. We may compare Philippians 2:6-11, which is not a hymn of praise to Christ but an encomium about Christ.

4. In the Hebrew of the Isaiah verse, YHWH swears (nishbaʿti) a word that will not return: “that to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear (tishavaʿ).” The image is of newly conquered subjects bowing before a king and swearing an oath of loyalty to him (cf. Is. 19:18). If the construction in Greek reflects this scenario, we need to supply something like “allegiance” as the object for exomologēsetai: “every tongue will confess (allegiance) to God.” The meaning is not that they will praise or worship God but that they will acknowledge that they have become subject to him. This is a critical distinction.

5. This idea of subjugation is present in Paul’s re-application of the image: the nations of the Greek-Roman world will bow the knee and acknowledge that they have become subject to or owe allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Davidic king seated at the right hand of God.

The force of the re-application lies not in a supposed identification of Jesus with YHWH but in the recognition, everywhere affirmed in the New Testament, that God has put Jesus in an intermediary position of authority between himself and the nations in order finally to achieve the decisive defeat of pagan idolatry envisaged so vividly by Isaiah.

There is nothing blasphemous or idolatrous about this in principle: Israelite kingship has always entailed a limited delegation of divine authority within the sphere of the exercise of kingdom. So Jesus is descended from David “according to the flesh” but has been “appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness from resurrection of the dead” (Rom. 1:4). In other words, the impermanent rule of a mortal king in Jerusalem has been superseded by the everlasting rule from heaven of a king who is no longer subject to death (cf. Acts 2:29-35).

5. The name with which Jesus has been favoured is, I am inclined to think, neither “YHWH” nor “Lord.” It is staring us in the face: God “favoured him with the name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow.”

The point is that gentiles in particular were increasingly invoking the name of this crucified messiah, no doubt in various cultic and civic contexts, and finding that it carried an authority greater than any other name. The God of Israel brought about this extraordinary transformation in Jesus’ status in order to overturn the political-religious hierarchies of the Greek-Roman world.