Confused.......Please help!

[F.R.O.G.101]

Hi,
I have been pondering a question, that questions are: If God is our Father, does that make Jesus our brother? and if Jesus is our brother, and sits at the right hand of God, than how can they be the same person.


Also, what exactly is the Holy Spirit?

 

[mrcrow]

Hi,
I have been pondering a question, that questions are: If God is our Father, does that make Jesus our brother? and if Jesus is our brother, and sits at the right hand of God, than how can they be the same person.


Also, what exactly is the Holy Spirit?

god isnt our biological father
jesus sticks closer than a brother
the holy spirit answers hard questions...retated to the trinity...and helps us find them in scripture

 

[Broken Halo]

Hi,
I have been pondering a question, that questions are: If God is our Father, does that make Jesus our brother? and if Jesus is our brother, and sits at the right hand of God, than how can they be the same person.


Also, what exactly is the Holy Spirit?

Well...

1. Romans 8:29 says...

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

2. Here you are getting into the Theology of what is called in Scripture the Godhead. There are many different views of how to interpret Scipture in reference to the Godhead. Some are Trinitarians, some follow a theology known as Oneness, some people go so far as to even find a certain polytheism in the Godhead.

What must be done in every instance of studying the Word is to make a concerted effort to forget what you want to find and see what is. If you have access to a concordance, look up words like Father, Holy Spirit, Son of Man etc. Read ALL of those verses. Read the context of all those verses. Record the direct statements made about those names. For example John chapter 1. Write down all the statement that this chapter makes about God.

Ex.
1. In the beginning was the WORD.
2. The WORD was with GOD.
3. The WORD was GOD.
4. HE was with GOD in the beginning.

and so on...there are a number more...

Now look up Word in your concordance. Read ALL the verses that are there. Read the context. For every new name for God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, repeat the process. You may be thinking this sounds like alot of work. It is. Determining what you will believe and who you trust on issues of Theology should not be taken lightly and no one should ever adopt an idea simply because it sounds good to them. Or someone they deem more knowledgeable than them "said so".

When you complete the research process, read all of the statements you have recorded. What must occur here is alot of prayer. If we know that every thing in the Bible is true, than we must equally believe every statement made about God in it. What you must do then is determine how all those statements become reconciled to one another. What I mean is how is it possible for seemingly contradictory (if one is true how can the other be) statements to all be true.

After all of that it is up to you whether you think that one of the numerous doctrines out there hold water, or if none of them seems to really grasp the idea. You will find some that are blatently unbiblical. You will find some that are darn close, but don't quite make it and you will find some where absolutely nothing out there makes a lick of sense and then you just rely on God. This is true for every topic you will ever want to study in the scriptures.

I hold to a specific doctrine myself. I believe our mission is not to convert young believers toward our doctrinal stances, but grant them the knowledge they need to discern for themselves. I am sure some one on here will eventually tell you that what they believe is right and try to convince you of it. They may be absolutely correct. They may however be absolutely wrong and dangerously close to heresy. But please study the Word in the way I have suggested and I gaurantee that our Father who loves us will give us every good thing.

If someone would have told me this along time ago I may have been able to save myself several years of school and a whole lot of tuition money.

God bless Sweet Child
Sola Scriptura
(Only Scripture)

 

[gitlance]

God is our Father in every sense because He created us. We are made "in His image." However, He is not our Father in the biological sense that we commonly refer to, because He did not have physical relations with anybody to produce us.

God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the Son of God in so far as relates to His humanity. Jesus took on a human nature, joining it to His eternally divine nature. Jesus is the 2nd member of the Blessed Trinity. He has both fully God and fully man. God in so far as His divinity is concerned, Man in so far as His humanity which He received from our Blessed Mother Mary is concerned. This is called the Hypostatic Union. Jesus Christ exists eternally as both 100% God and 100% man. He is our brother in relation to the fact that He shares our humanity with us, though He is perfect and without sin. He is our Master, God, and Lord because "the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily" in Him. He is fully God, the eternal Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The Holy Spirit is the divine 3rd person of the Holy Trinity. He, according to Christ, proceeds from the Father. We also know, according to the theology of the Church, that in proceeding from the Father, he also proceeds through the Son. He indwells the believers, leads the Church into all truth, and possesses equal divinity and authority as God the Father and God the Son. Yet these are not three gods, but one God. This one God is eternally existent as three persons of one essence. You cannot separate them from the essence of God and their relation with each other.

Perhaps the most concise explanation of this is to be found in the Athanasian creed:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/athacree.htm

You may also wish to read this link for a summary of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity:

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/17041_20885_ENG_HTM.htm?menu=menu16973

Above all, you must understand that the Holy Trinity is essentially a mystery. While we can try to explain it as much as we like, it will never be truly possible to fully explain something which does not fit within the realm of human logic and understanding.

Hope this helped some.

Christ's peace!

 

[marciebaby]

That Jesus rules at the right hand of God is another way of saying that He is EQUAL in power and authority to God. It was just the language usage that was common at the time.

 

[marciebaby]

PS, have you ever read The Case for Christ???

It's really good to read if you ever are in the middle of a faith crisis.

Blessings,
Marcie

 

[kathokatho]

God is all things to us....and still just one God. Let's put in in human context...just for arguments sake. Let's take a man with children. He is a father...but he is also someone's son (God put his essense into Mary and brought forth a Son...His Son, Mary's son...and the Son of all man...which is us.) This same man has a spirit....that is the core of his presence...this man is not three seperate intities...but one inclusive of all that being a father, a son, and a spiritual being is. The same with God....he is a Trinity and the Trinity is ONE. Hope this helps...sometimes our human needs to look at things on our level because trying to understand on God's level is hard...though we must continue to strive for that.

 

[mythbuster]

God is our Father (John 20:17). By the Holy Spirit of God we have been regenerated (John 3:5-6, I Peter 1:23), reborn (John 3:3), and now have forever the very same uncreated, indestructible (Hebrews 7:16), eternal life of God. This is to have eternal life. Since He has imparted into us His life we are now His sons and as such sons we also partake of His nature. We now have the same life and nature as God (II Peter 1:4). Whoever has this life has the Son (I John 5:12). To have the eternal life is to have the Son, so Paul could say that Christ now lives in us and is our life (Col 1:27). Jesus Christ, the only begotten, passed through death and resurrection and now as the Firstborn Son of God is leading many sons into Glory (Col 1:18, Heb 2:10)). As such He is our Brother.

Now what?
We have two choices.

1) Do an analysis and mental gymnastics trying to understand the mystery of God, Christ. Or...
2) With joy draw water from the wells of salvation calling on the Lord Jesus (12: 3-4), calling Abba Father (Rom 8:15), receiving Him into us as food (John 6:35), water John 4: 14), air (John 20:22), and life (John 3:16). There is a river flowing free, flowing out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. (Rev 22:1) Today the Spirit and the Bride are calling from eternity future to us in time to drink of this water freely.(Rev 22:17)