My Rabbi teaches that all souls existed before taking on flesh. As far as I know all of Judaism agrees with that. Notice I said "as far as I know."
First I'm hearing it. LDS teaches that.
However, the whole trinity thing is one of the major reasons I no longer call myself Messianic.
Huh.
It's in every faction of MJ's statement of faith.
It's also in the Bible. Not taught as overtly as "Trinitarianism 101" but if like Anne Sullivan Macy (who broke through Helen Keller's prison of failed sense of sight and hearing) you repeat something often enough... people generally catch on.
HaShem clearly states that He is Echad. No matter how you choose to count, three doesn't equal one.
Echad family is one person? One individual?
Nope.
Not to mention the fact that Yeshua never once claimed to be HaShem.
John 5:43
43
I am come in my Fathers name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.
There is a reason why Yeshua did not make claims about himself as deity (HaShem). He had a Messianic office to fulfill. This meant laying down his life to save his flock. He came to serve. Isaiah 53 the suffering SERVANT. Even earlier in the chapter Yeshua said he could not do certain things... not from inability but from submission to a prior arrangement. Because you will note he is capable of doing what the Father does. He is equal with God in this chapter and in Philippians 2.
Track down John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:13-15 and Isaiah 44:24 and you will learn that Yeshua (preincarnate) was YHVH Creator, God the Word.
But as it says in Isaiah 53 and Philippians 2 he had to restrain himself from using his own deity. He could have come down from the cross, roasted alive the mockers and split the lictors in two with a thought... but he stayed within the limits of his humanity and died... for you and I.
Heber, how is not believing in the trinity a heresy?
As I demonstrated, Yeshua is YHVH incarnate. The Creator. And yet there is another... the Father... whose only creation was the body of the Son.
John 1:1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and
the Word was God.
John 1:14
14 And
the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of
the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Hebrews 10:5-7
5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but
a body hast thou prepared me:
6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
And don't get uptight over him calling the Father God. The Father said it to the Son...
Hebrews 1:8
8 But unto the Son
he saith, Thy throne,
O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
Folks tend to discredit the doctrine based on the flaws of RCC dogma in other areas. I am not a Catholic basher, but I believe the greatest throwing away of the baby with the bath water as far as the Jewishness of the fait his concerned... and the greatest pagan infiltration came through the RCC.
Topic for another thread.
But when they get one right, you have to give them that.
It just so happened that the Church was persecuted to the point it was too far underground to hold councils to determine scripture canonization and to compare the complete biblical texts... until Constantine (who legalized Christianity to prop up his crumbling empire). Many believe the RCC is what the Roman Empire morphed into, and the fall of the empire was an empty shell.
But the scriptures persist, there are three who are the one God. So we must alter our thinking of "one" to fit the facts just as we do in the example of a family. There is no such thing as a family of one.
Heresy is a punk word used to punk people (not the Candid Camera version we see on tv today) it was a slam and in times past could cost one membership in a Church, citizenship, or their life.
I prefer to say it this way. If God says he is this way (x-y-z), then any other version is the wrong god. We believe in 1. Fine so long as it is the same way God means 1 and indicates in scripture.
John 17:11
11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee.
Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given
me,
that they may be one, as we are.
John 17:22
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them;
that they may be one, even as we are one:
