Is Jesus Christ divine?
If not, why "listen to his teachings" at all?
He would be an itinerant Jewish preacher and minor trouble maker of the 1st century, not worthy of scribbling notes about, let alone millions giving their lives for His truth.
I believe Jesus was and is divine. I believe His teachings about inheriting eternal life being connected to loving God and man to be divine truth. I think those teachings can stand alone as divine truth. They are not divine truth because Jesus said them or is divine. Anyone saying what is divine truth is speaking divine truth.
Yes, God created all persons. But there are definite divisions between religions. If not, then there is no point in any of them, and that includes Christianity, so why even debate about Christianity if it is just like all the rest?
God did not create these divisions. They are man made and not within the will of God. God desires that we be all one in Jesus, where there is no male or female, jew or greek, bond or free.
Jesus asks "Who do you say that I am"? I believe that the way we answer that question to ourselves is the way of our life on earth, and our life in heaven
. I believe we can answer that question correctly and be spiritually dead. Jesus said it is not the one that calls me Lord, but the one that does what I command--and He commanded that we love others.
It is by God's grace that we are given the faith in Christ. We can be led there by reason, but at some point, the reason must lead to faith, or it is empty. The faith needs to inspired us to feed the hungry, house the homeless, visit the sick and imprisoned, or it is empty. So you seem to be in agreement about the importance of works, (a very Catholic understanding of Christianity), but yet, Jesus in no more or less important than Mohammed, or Joseph Smith, or Siddartha Guatama, or John Calvin? Jesus was just cult of personality? You are entitled to that, of course. I'm not trying to be chiding. I'm trying to state this back to you the way it sounds to me. Please don't take offense.
I understand your point. I do think there is a difference between Jesus and the others--especially John Calvin who I almost always disagree with, but my point is that divine truth is divine truth no matter its source. If John Calvin had preached that we should chose to love and care for others to be within the will of our Creator, it would have been true. That goes for the rest of those you mention and I would include Ghandi and Buddha in that group.
To my way of thinking, if Jesus IS indeed God, (Consubstantial with the Father), then what He had so say was much different, and vastly more important than anything anyone ever had to say in the history of mankind
. I don't think so. I think when Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, everyone there knew before the heard the story that God expected us to help people in need. I think Jesus was focusing on and encouraging us to do what we already knew was the right thing, because God had already written it on the hearts of the hearers.
And not just what He said, but what He DID. One of the things He DID was suffer under Pontius Pilate, die, get buried, descend to the dead, rise again from the dead in glory, teach for another 40 days, then ascend into Heaven where He is with the Father again, until He returns to Judge the living and the dead, and create a new Heavens, and a new Earth.
Others have suffered and died. While I agree Jesus rose again, I do not agree that my belief in my eternal and good Creator rises and falls on that being true. If it is not true, I still believe in God who is good all the time. I do not think Jesus is coming to create a new Heaven and new Earth in the literal sense. I believe Jesus recreates us spiritually after we have destroyed our own soul with our own sin, if and only if we repent from being unloving to loving like our God. Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world and I don't think His kingdom will every be of this world, physical and temporal.
People of course have the right to call themselves whatever they'd like. Perhaps I'm missing many key ideas of your type of Christian philosophy. I don't doubt I am. This is just brief tid bits of theology, bantered about in a forum. So if there is a point I'm missing, or if I'm not understanding you, I do apologize.
God bless and keep you.
