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Questions From ReadersThe Watchtower—1970 | November 15
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Obeisance to a human king is found in Jesus’ illustration at Matthew 18:26. It is also evident that this was the kind of obeisance the astrologers rendered to the child Jesus, “born king of the Jews,” and also that Herod professed interest in expressing, and that the soldiers mockingly rendered to Jesus before his impalement. They clearly did not view Jesus as God or as a deity.—Matt. 2:2, 8; Mark 15:19.
While some translators use the word “worship” in the majority of cases where pro·sky·ne΄o describes persons’ actions toward Jesus, the evidence does not warrant one’s reading too much into this rendering. Rather, the circumstances that evoked the obeisance correspond very closely with those producing obeisance to the earlier prophets and kings. (Compare Matthew 8:2; 9:18; 15:25; 20:20 with 1 Samuel 25:23, 24; 2 Samuel 14:4-7; 1 Kings 1:16; 2 Kings 4:36, 37.) The very expressions of those involved often reveal that, while they clearly recognized Jesus as God’s representative, they rendered obeisance to him, not as to God or a deity, but as “God’s Son,” the foretold “Son of man,” the Messiah with divine authority.—Matt. 14:32, 33; 28:5-10, 16-18; Luke 24:50-52; John 9:35, 38.
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Questions From ReadersThe Watchtower—1970 | November 15
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Evidently Christ’s coming had brought in new relationships affecting standards of conduct toward others of God’s servants. He taught his disciples that “one is your teacher, whereas all you are brothers . . . your Leader is one, the Christ.” (Matt. 23:8-12) For it was in him that the prophetic figures and types found their fulfillment, even as the angel told John that “the bearing witness to Jesus is what inspires prophesying.” (Rev. 19:10) Jesus was David’s Lord, the greater than Solomon, the prophet greater than Moses. (Luke 20:41-43; Matt. 12:42; Acts 3:19-24) The obeisance rendered those men prefigured that due Christ. Peter therefore rightly refused to let Cornelius make too much of him.
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