Simply saying, "I am ..." does not make one the great I AM. The blind man in John 9:9 said, "I am" (ego eimi). Should we start worshiping him as the incarnation of the great I AM?
No, but in Jesus' case, it was so. It is also clear from other texts that Jesus was claiming equality with God, and that the Jews knew this.
This is one of several places where the Jews got it wrong. YHWH gave Yeshua ALL authority including the authority to forgive sins. If Yeshua was forgiving sins because he was God, then many men saw God. Yet, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that no man has ever seen God.
No; the Bible describes Moses as a man who saw God face to face. Isaiah also said, "my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty", Isaiah 6:5.
Jesus was God, and was, and is, one with God. Even though they didn't know it then, everyone who saw Jesus, saw God.
I agree. I never said Yeshua wasn't from God. He is the Son of God, yet you want me to believe he was God Himself.
The Bible says he was God himself. As I said, the Jews believed he was God, which is why they accused him of blasphemy, tried to stone him and then crucified him.
Jesus said that he was one with the Father, that he shared God's glory before the world was created, John 17:5 and that he had come from heaven, John 3:13.
The apostle John says that Jesus is God - John 1:1-3, John 1:14.
The apostle Paul says that Jesus is God - Colossians 1:15-17.
The author of the book of Hebrews says it - Hebrew 1:2-3.
The Nicean creed, which is accepted by mainline churches and this forum, says it.
So if the Father is the only ONE God, but you say "Jesus was both man and God, then you have two Gods. The Scriptures teach monotheism.
No, because Jesus said, "I and the Father are ONE". There is ONE God, three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Just as my brother is one man, but a father, husband and son. He does not have the same relationship with his children as he has with his wife; he'd be arrested. He does/did not have the same relationship with, and treat our parents in the same way that he treated his children, and did not do the same things for them - e.g tell them to do their homework, teach them to walk/speak/drive.
As a Father he does certain things/behaves in certain ways, as a husband he does different things and behaves in different ways, ditto as a son. Yet he is one man.
Yes, one reason they put him to death was for saying he was "the Son of God." They did NOT put him to death because he said he "IS God". Big difference.
No, in a previous verse that I quoted the Jews said,
"we are not stoning you for any of your miracles, but because you, a mere man, claim to be God".
Son of God is the same as God the Son.
Which bit is false; the Scripture, which says that Jesus was making himself equal with God, or the fact that I am claiming that the Jews knew this?
Scripture does not tech that Yeshua was 100% human and 100% God. That is man made doctrine.
No, it's a Scriptural doctrine and was taught by the church.
The Apostles had to counter a number of heresies; one of which was that Jesus had not been God, or if he was, he only became divine at his baptism and "lost" his divinity before he was crucified. Another heresy was that Jesus WAS God, (which was correct) but that he had never become a human being, since the body/flesh/matter is corrupt. Both these heresies are still around today; the first is pedalled by the Jehovah's Witnesses, the second by Christian Scientists. Both of these groups are Christian cults and are accepted as such by the churches.
The version of Philippians 2:6 you referenced reads, "6 who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped". In other words, he was not equal to God.
No, in other words, he did not cling onto and fully use, or exploit, his divinity.
That is how trinitarian translators would like it to read. The text only says, "ego eimi", not "I AM" in all capitals.
But the problem for you is that the Trinity is a major Christian doctrine.
Defence of the Trinity is exactly one of the topics you would expect to find in "Christian Apologetics". The very rules of these forums say;
"Faith groups and individuals that deny the full, eternal deity of Jesus Christ or His incarnation whereby He, as God, took on human flesh (becoming fully God and fully man in one person), are considered non-Christians at CF.
Posts that deny the full, eternal deity of Jesus Christ or His incarnation are considered non-Christian theology and are not allowed in "Christians Only" forums. Discussions in all "Christians Only" forums must be in alignment with Trinitarian beliefs."
So if they just criticized him on other occasions, why stone him in John 8? Because his use of ego eimi did NOT mean he was claiming to be the great I AM. It was other things that brought them to stone him.
Scripture does not say that it was other things that caused them to try to stone him; that is an interpretation.
In John 8, Jesus forgave a woman caught in the act of adultery, and the rest of the chapter is a discussion about his claims and who Jesus is. The Jews claimed to be children of Abraham, Jesus disputes this because they were not doing the things that Abraham did. He said that Abraham looked forward to his day, (the day when Jesus would come. Jesus' coming and ministry is foretold in the OT.)
The Jews stated that he was not even 50 and claimed he had seen Abraham, and Jesus replied, "before Abraham was born; I AM".
John then says "
at this, they picked up stones to stone him", John 8:59. They didn't pick up stones at any other point; they didn't pick up stones to kill the woman who had been caught breaking the law, but threw them at Jesus instead.
This is another example of the Jews getting it wrong.
If they HAD got it wrong, they would not have wanted him killed for blasphemy - although they also charged him with treason, so that the Romans would crucify him.
You won't find anywhere in John 10 or anywhere in all of Scripture where Yeshua "claimed to be God". He ALWAYS claimed to be God's Son.
It is only WE, with our human thinking, that reckon that a son is a different person from, and inferior to, his father. Jesus is God the Son - on earth, he referred to himself as the Son of God, or, most often, Son of Man. Yet he and his disciples knew and taught that he was God. The Jews also believed that this was what he was saying - which is why they opposed and tried to kill him.
Jesus was a Jew. He knew the commandments; he knew there is only one God, yet he claimed equality with God.
First, a man can die, but God cannot. God has inherent immortality. He cannot possibly die.
I know. This is difficult/impossible to understand or explain. Yet just because we, with our finite minds, can't understand it; it doesn't mean it isn't so.
This is the Gospel - God created the world, mankind messed up, God sent Jesus to lay down his life as a perfect sacrifice for sin and reconciled mankind to himself.
Genesis says that God spoke and the world came into being, Genesis 1.
John says that Jesus is the Word of God and it was through him that all things were created, John 1:1-3.
Genesis says "let US make man on OUR image", Genesis 1:26-27, and the word used for God is plural.
John, Paul and the author of Hebrews says that Jesus was with God in the beginning; Jesus said that he shared God's glory before the world began.
And yet Jesus, who was God, was made flesh, John 1:14 and lived among us. not only that, he was the Good Shepherd who willingly laid down his life for the sheep, John 10:11.
The apostles and early church all taught that salvation, peace and reconciliation with God are only possible through Jesus.
That authority was not GIVEN to a God who supposedly already had that authority.
Jesus was ALSO a human being, God and human. This has been the teaching of the church throughout the ages; you reject that doctrine.
Fourth, he could give us eternal life because his Father YHWH gave him life in himself just as the Father has (John 5:26). Yeshua did not always have such life. It was given to him.
Jesus said, "I AM the life", John 14:6.
Fifth, God will raise many men from the dead. They do not have to be Gods in order for God to raise them up.
We will ALL be raised from the dead and meet with God, 2 Corinthians 5:10; Hebrews 9:27. What happens after that depends on whether or not we have accepted Jesus. I don't know if God will actually ask the questions, "what did you think of my Son?" or "why should I let you into heaven?" But Scripture teaches, and Jesus made it quite clear, that if someone rejects the Son - and all he stood for and taught - then that person would not have eternal life, and what's more, that the Son would reject him when he stood before the Father.
Yeshua was a sinless, flesh and blood man who now mediates between other men and God,
God is the judge who condemned the world for its sin and said "the wages of sin is death", Romans 6:23, and then he stepped in and paid this price himself, "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord".
Jesus himself said that he had come to give his life as a ransom for many, Mark 10:45, and that he was the Good Shepherd who - of his own accord - laid down his life for the sheep, John 10:17-18.
Jesus was not JUST a man, who had somehow managed to live a perfect life - which no one else had ever managed - and so God said "at last! He'll do; he can die for sin."
God knew what choice Adam would make in the garden, and had a plan to save us before we even knew we would need a Saviour. He told the serpent that one day he would be crushed by the woman's descendant, Genesis 3:15 - a prophecy that Jesus would defeat Satan on the cross. Peter also said that Jesus was "the Lamb chosen from the foundation of the world", 1 Peter 1:19-20.
Even now, as he sits as our mediator, he is a "man". We do not have a God mediating between man and God.
He is the perfect mediator between man and God; he always was God, took on human flesh, "became man" and is now with the Father as man and God.
Because of Jesus, God KNOWS what it is like to feel pain, disappointment, rejection, hardship, loneliness etc etc; not because he is omniscient and knows all things, but because he has experienced and felt them.
No one can ever say that God is aloof, sits apart from his creation and has no idea what we go through - he has been there, done that; in Jesus.