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Jesus worshipped: An understanding of the word

proskuneo.
I was led to read an article wherein which we were challenged not to worship Jesus but the Father. I
am not really comfortable with that thought. While Jesus always attributed worship to His Father, I
too retort by asking Who does the Father ask us to worship? The answer is the Old and New
Testament is simple: His Son. Hebrews 1:6. It is pertinent to note also here that while God said to
Moses Worship the Lord your God only, these words are preceded by The Lord God your God
is one. I believe He was saying the Father, the Word and the Spirit is one.
Also note Paul states that it is to the Fathers glory that everyone proclaims that Jesus is Lord.
That I believe sums up true worship, when we glorify the Son, the Father is glorified. It was the
Father who gave us the Son! By bringing glory to the Son, we have access and bring glory to His
Father.
I am intrigued however by one particular point which was raised by a professor in Theology
wherein which he argued that Jesus was not really worshiped but that people only bowed down to
him. He argues that the word which in Greek isproskuneo does not denote worship but merely
respect. I must beg to differ. To state something like this is borderline dangerous. I think a proper
exposition of this word proskuneo is required. I also found an article which I find most helpful.
Herein below is the said article.
Was Jesus Worshipped?
Greg shows how Jesus received worship and therefore is one with the Father. In doing so, he gives
a good lesson on how we, too, might approach constructing arguments on issues like these.
By: Gregory Koukl
When dealing with a biblical problem some of you say, Well, I dont know Greek. Listen, you
dont need to know Greek in order to solve many of the difficult problems. I dont know Greek
either. But I think youll see that what Im about to show you are fair and reasonable conclusions to
a textual problem of the alleged worship of Jesus Christ. You dont need to consult a bunch of
experts. You can be an expert by consulting the text in a reasoned fashion and Im going to show
you how I did it in solving this question about whether Jesus received worship, as I would argue, as
opposed to receiving mere respect, as others have suggested, and how you can do it too, in
resolving other biblical issues.
Now, I want to add this caveat as well. Some of the details make this seem a little bit tedious, in
keeping with Thomas Edisons observation that geniusin this case theological geniusis 10%
inspiration and 90% perspiration. A lot of discovery in this kind of study is just plain work. Im

going to show you how I did the work and explain the conclusions I came to by demonstrating this
process.
Our conversation, as you may recall, went something like this:
Greg : Jesus received worship. Only God was to receive worship. Therefore, Jesus is God.
Caller : The word used to describe what people did with Jesus ( proskuneo ) was also used in
Rev 3:9 where God says Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan, to come
and bow down (same word proskuneo ) at your feet. Therefore Jesus wasnt being
worshiped.
Greg astutely replied : Abadee, abadee, abadee, abadee.
The point was well made and I was caught short on information.
An observation at this point was that we simply couldnt leave the issue here. For one reason, the
point that my caller made really didnt solve anything. He offered an alternative explanation, he
didnt offer an argument. He said that Jesus wasnt worshipped, but He was merely bowed
down to like the bowing down (which is obviously not worship) recorded in Revelation. Now,
thats not an argument; thats an assertion. What he didnt do was offer evidence why he believed
that Jesus was being bowed down to and not worshipped in the same way as the word is used in
other passages to denote worship of God.
The second observation is that nothing really had been affirmed about the use of the word
proskuneo . The only thing established was the fact that the use of this word in reference to Christ
doesnt necessarily and automatically mean men worshipped Him. So it remains for us to solve the
problem, What does proskuneo mean when it is applied to Jesus? How do we go about
solving this problem? Im going to show you in detail how to answer this kind of question.
Keep in mind our goal. Our goal is to determine the meaning of a word in its particular
context. Now words are equivocal; words by themselves can mean different things. But in
context they are univocal, they are usually unambiguous. The context helps narrow and refine
the focus of a particular meaning so that in many cases the meaning cannot be missed. The
context always determines the meaning. So were faced with the question, what clues, if any,
does the context give us about this word proskuneo as it relates to the person of Jesus Christ.
Of course to know the context we have to know what the words are and where the words are
located and here is where a couple of very useful tools come into play. You need two things,
basically. First, you need an exhaustive concordance. Strongs Concordance is one example.
New American Standard Concordance is another. These concordances list where particular
words are used in the text. Theyre keyed to the English translation so you wont get every
place where the word proskuneo is used, you will get places it is translated into English as
worship. But other times it is translated as bow down. That wont show up under
worship, you have to look under bow down.

How can you find every place in the New Testament that a particular Greek word is used so that
you can examine all of the contexts and come to some conclusions about how the word is used?
You do that by using a Greek concordance, a concordance that lists all the Greek words and not the
English words. The Greek concordance that I use is called Wigram Englishman Concordance of the
New Testament .. You might say, I dont know Greek, how can I look it up? Now whats
important about this is that this book is coded to the numbers in Strongs and the New American
Standard Concordances . You can look up an English word in Strongs and find the number. You
look up the same number in Wigram and it will give you the Greek word, in this case
proskuneo . Then underneath proskuneo you will find every single reference of proskuneo in
the New Testament, along with the way that it is translated in the King James Translation. It
will enable you to look at all of the contexts so that you can see how the word is used.
Incidentally, if youd like to get a copy of Wigrams , I bought mine at The Christian Discount
Bookstore in Whittier. The concordance will help you find the word and the corresponding number;
the number will help you locate the Greek word in Wigrams .
Having gone to Wigrams and looked up the word in question, proskuneo , I found that the word
actually occurs 59 times in the New Testament. As I read through every single one of those verses
and this is what you must do if you want to do a thorough jobI realized that there were some
conclusions I could draw immediately that represented a series of facts which became my working
material.
The first fact is this: Jesus said to proskuneo no one but the Father. This is in Matthew 4 and
Luke 4, parallel accounts of Jesus temptation in which Satan asks Jesus to bow down. The word
used is proskuneo . We also see the angel in Revelation 19:10 and 22:9 saying, proskuneo no one
but the Father.
Second point, there are 22 references citing the Father receiving proskuneo .
Third point, we also see that Jesus received proskuneo (14 references).
Fourth point, 14 additional references indicate improper proskuneo of the devil, demons, idols or
the beast of Revelation. In other words, people worshipping the devil, demons, idols, falling down
before them, that was not right and it was clear from the context that it wasnt right. And there are
three other cases where men or angels are proskuneoed , worshipped. Cornelius fell down in Acts
10:25 and the Apostle Johnsurprisingly the beloved apostle himselffell down before the angel of
Revelation in 19:10, 22:8 and he was corrected for doing this.
The fifth fact is that we also see men receiving proskuneo , the point my caller was bringing
up. One time the action was forced by God (Rev 3:9). The only other time was in Matthews
Gospel (8:26), The slave therefore falling down, prostrated himself [ proskuneo ] before him,
saying, Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything.' This was the story Jesus told
of the man who owed much and then was forgiven that debt after being threatened with being
hauled off and thrown into the debtors prison.

proskuneo
The most important things about what Ive done so far is that these five observations bring us to
one simple conclusion and raise one simple question. The simple conclusion is that there is a
type of proskuneo that is worship reserved to God alone, and there is a type of proskuneo that
can be done with mena bowing down, a courtesy, a sign of deference and respect, a tippingthe-hat, so to speak. In other words, sometimes its okay and sometimes it isnt. Whats the
difference?
Heres the simple question: How would one distinguish between bowing low to a man in respect,
which is allowed, and true worship, which is forbidden? Or more specific to our task, Did people
worship Jesus or did they merely bow low in respect? To answer that we have to go back to the
text.
As I looked at these texts, I realized something. There is a type of proskuneo that cannot be
mistaken for mere courtesy. In Acts 10:25 Cornelius fell at Peters feet and proskuneo
(worshipped) him. In Revelation 19:10 and 22:8 John fell at the angels feet twice and
proskuneo (worshipped) him. Both Cornelius and John were seriously reprimanded. Why?
The reason they were reprimanded is that proskuneo is generally translated to bow down but
listen closelyif a person is already down, the addition of proskuneo must indicate worship.
Cornelius didnt fall at Peters feet and then bow down, he was already down. John didnt fall
down at the angels feet and then bow down, he was already down. They both fell down and
worshipped. Ergo the strong words of correction: Worship God, not me.
Remember the words of the devil in the temptation in Matthew 4:9? And he said to Him, All
these things will I give You, if You fall down and worship me.' No possibility of mistaking that.
Then Jesus said to him, Begone, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God,
and serve Him only.'
There are six different references that include the phrase falling down with the worship of God.
In fact, the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures in Revelation were always keeling over
at the foot of the throne and worshipping ( proskuneo ) the Father (1 Cor 14:25, Rev 4:10, 5:14,
7:11, 11:16 and 19:4).
By the way, it isnt just falling down and worshipping thats condemned. There are twelve
references where demons, idols or the beast of Revelation are merely proskuneo, worshipped (no
reference to falling down) and its condemned. But the addition of the notion of falling down in
other places merely makes the meaning impossible to miss in the context.
Does this happen with any mere man? Only once in Matthew 18:26, The slave therefore falling
down, proskuneo (prostrated himself) before him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will
repay you everything.' Keep in mind, though no editorial comment is made whether this is right or
wrong. And lets face it, this guy is groveling for his life in the illustration that Jesus is giving. He

may have been attempting to worship, we simply dont know. This doesnt tell us about the
particular meaning of the word.
Now to the point of our study: what kind of proskuneo was given to Jesus?
The word proskuneo is used fourteen times of Jesus. There are six different times proskuneo
is used of Jesus where it seems clear from the context that courtesy, respect or deference is in
view. The leper came to Him and bowed down to Him, saying, Lord, if You are willing, You
can make me clean. In Matthew 9:18, While He was saying these things to them, behold,
there came a synagogue official and he bowed down before Him, saying, My daughter has
just died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.' In Matthew 15:25, we see a
Canaanite woman whose daughter was demon-possessed bowing down before Him and
saying, Lord, help me! In Matthew 20:20 the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Him
on behalf of her sons, bowing down and making a request of Him. Nothing in the context
indicates that anything other than deference or respect is going on.
There are two cases that are not clear. The demon possessed man from Gadarenes, Mark 5:6. And
also Mark 15:19, the soldiers are bowing down and mocking Jesus. We dont know if they are
mocking deference or mocking worship. It just doesnt say. So lets just set those aside for the time
being.
But what of the other eight references of proskuneo to Jesus? You tell me based on what weve
already covered. Matthew 2:2, 8, 11, Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we
saw His star in the east, and have come to worship Him..[Herod says,] Go and make careful
search for the Child; and when you have found Him, report to me, that I too may come and worship
Him..And they came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother and they fell down
and worshiped Him. Matthew 28:9, And they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and
great joy and ran to report it to His disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And
they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.
The Magi and the Christ child with the miraculous star overhead, the disciples with the risen Jesus,
are not falling down and then bowing down; theyre already down. They are falling down and, as
the New American Bible accurately translates it, worshipping Jesus Christ.
What of the other cases? Matthew 14:3, Peter gets out of the boat and walks on the water. Peter
starts to sink, Jesus reaches out and saves him. And when they got into the boat the wind
stopped. And those who were in the boat worshipped Him saying, You are certainly Gods
Son! These people are not just tipping their hats to an esteemed person. In Matthew 28:17 it
says, And when they saw Him, [the risen Jesus Christ whom they knew had been dead and was
now alive] they worshipped Him. And then in John 9:38 the man blind from birth is healed. He
said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped Him. Hebrews 1:6, And when He again brings the firstborn into the world He says, And let all the angels of God worship Him.'
These verses show much more than mere respect, much more than deference, much more
than courtesy. Jesus is being worshipped. Yes, there are times when the word proskuneo is

used of Jesus and other men and it doesnt refer to worship. The context tells us. We looked at
the context and especially the use of the phrase falling down and worshipping. It seems
hard to escape the conclusion that Jesus is being worshipped.
We have just done an exhaustive analysis of the context and came to the fair and reasonable
conclusion that Jesus was worshipped. Does that mean its right? No, we could be wrong. But the
evidence is compelling that on some occasions Jesus received the kind of proskuneo , worship,
that was to be reserved for God alone.
As I said, the context is the most important factor in determining the meaning of a word. We have
just done an exhaustive analysis of the context and came to the fair and reasonable conclusion that
Jesus was worshipped. Does that mean its right? No, we could be wrong. But the evidence is
compelling that on some occasions Jesus received the kind of proskuneo , worship, that was to be
reserved for God alone.
There are a number of places where the deity of Christ seems to be inferred (I would say implied,
i.e., it was the intent of the author). All we need is one concrete anchor regarding Jesus deity to
justify the inference. We have several; this is one of them. Jesus, clearly, received worship. If He
did, then weve proven His deity.
Ill close with the words of C.S. Lewis. He writes, Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man
who goes about talking as if He were God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always
existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear.
Among pantheists, like the Hindus of India, anyone might say that he is part of god or one with
god. There would be nothing very odd about that. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not
mean that kind of God. God in their language meant the Being outside of the world who had made
it and was infinitely different than anything else. And when you have grasped that concept you will
see that what this man said was quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by
human lips. I agree.
At least thats the way I see it.
I hope you are blessed.

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