eternal progression

[Doc T]

Doc, can you point out specifically where God's Word says this?

Thanks,
Frankie

Acts 17:29

Doc

~

 

[gort]

If I was an unregenerate man, how would I know what to do? Would it be natural for me to find my way?

No.

As a reborn Christian, how do I know what to do? It is by the Holy Spirit that teaches me and guides me step by step. The rest of my days spent will be peeling layers of the "old man" away, and replacing with the new. ANd when I am resurrected on the last day, I will be like Jesus.

THe potter molds the clay.



<><

 

[skylark1]

Acts uses the Greek word genus. It's in the Bible. You may not accept it, and you may try to explain it away, but it is there.

No you are not God, but of the same genus and thus you have the potential to become like him through the atonement of Christ.

Acts 17:29

Doc, the word "genos," translated as "offspring" was part of a pagan poem by the Greek poet Aratus, that Paul quoted from.

That upon the whole matter we are God’s offspring; he is our Father that begat us (Deu. 32:6, 18), and he hath nourished and brought us up as children, Isa. 1:2. The confession of an adversary in such a case is always looked upon to be of use as argumentum ad hominem—an argument to the man, and therefore the apostle here quotes a saying of one of the Greek poets, Aratus, a native of Cilicia, Paul’s countryman, who, in his Phenomena, in the beginning of his book, speaking of the heathen Jupiter, that is, in the poetical dialect, the supreme God, says this of him, tou gar kai genos esmen—for we are also his offspring. And he might have quoted other poets to the purpose of what he was speaking, that in God we live and move:— http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/c/1086387814-1201.html


​

The point that Paul was making is that God does not dwell in man idols that have been made by men.

 

[fatboys]

Sorry, we don't become "Gods or gods". Can the clay become the potter? Can you become YOUR father? No, you will always be the son.

FB: I could never be my father, but I could be like him.

 

[carolbob]

What I get out of scripture is that we will be worshipping God. I will site my sources in a bit, what scripture are you referring to that we will be like Him?

 

[carolbob]

Mark 12:24-25

Jesus replied "Are you not in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will be like the angles in heaven."

It says we will be like angels, I don't get "like God" in this scripture.

1 Corinthians 2:9

However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him."

 

[Doc T]

Doc, the word "genos," translated as "offspring" was part of a pagan poem by the Greek poet Aratus, that Paul quoted from.

Sorry, haven't been able to reply. Will get to this next week. Have a great weekend.

Doc

~

 

[Doc T]

What I get out of scripture is that we will be worshipping God. I will site my sources in a bit, what scripture are you referring to that we will be like Him?

Don't have time to go into much detail, but let's start with 1 John 3:2

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall wee him as he is.

I can get more into this next week. Have a great weekend carolbob.

Doc

~

 

[Doc T]

Doc, the word "genos," translated as "offspring" was part of a pagan poem by the Greek poet Aratus, that Paul quoted from.

That upon the whole matter we are God’s offspring; he is our Father that begat us (Deu. 32:6, 18), and he hath nourished and brought us up as children, Isa. 1:2. The confession of an adversary in such a case is always looked upon to be of use as argumentum ad hominem—an argument to the man, and therefore the apostle here quotes a saying of one of the Greek poets, Aratus, a native of Cilicia, Paul’s countryman, who, in his Phenomena, in the beginning of his book, speaking of the heathen Jupiter, that is, in the poetical dialect, the supreme God, says this of him, tou gar kai genos esmen—for we are also his offspring. And he might have quoted other poets to the purpose of what he was speaking, that in God we live and move:


​

The point that Paul was making is that God does not dwell in man idols that have been made by men.

Hope you had a great weekend.

What is important is Paul’s use of this passage. While he no doubt wanted to make a connection to the intellectuals on Mars’ Hill, I believe he only would have used such a passage from a pagan poet (the only completely unambiguous quotation of Greek literature in the New Testament) if in his understanding it accurately represented a message he wanted to convey to the Athenians. Paul understood the message not in a Stoic but in a biblical sense; God is not only near to human beings, but also, in the words of the Catholic scholar Joseph Fitzmyer, “they are kin to him.” The Greek word genos rendered “offspring” here does indeed refer to lineal descent. Recall that Luke, who wrote this material in Acts, also recorded at the end of his genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:38 that Adam was the son of God.

Indeed, this verse serves as a “double-whammy” against the Evangelical understanding because it clearly tells us two things that undermine its assumption:

1) We are the literal offspring, race and species of God.
2) God is not in the form of stone silver, gold because we are his offspring – God is not formless, but in the form of man.

Paul was making the point that God’s material form could be ascertained by the fact that we are his offspring. The connection between God’s material nature and his offspring is never acknowledged in the Evangelical argument. The definition of genus cannot go ignored. Accepting it for what it says is plain and simple. The term genus clearly implies genetic lineage as it is typically used to describe “descendants of a common ancestor.”

Regrettably, for Evangelicals there is nothing ambiguous or abstract about its meaning. So while LDS apologists have produced at least one verse that explicitly declares mankind to be of the same species as God, the Evangelical argument is completely void of verses that implicitly, let alone explicitly, state a creature/Creator dichotomy as they understand it. (Extracted from writings of Kevin Graham)

William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 4th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 155; see Gerhard Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 1:684-85. For the meaning of the term in classical or pagan Greek (which is identical), see any of the numerous editions of the standard Liddell and Scott lexicon. The same term, genos, is used in the modern Greek translation of the Bible, (Athens: Biblike Hetairia, 1971)

In his article "Ye are Gods" Daniel Peterson has this to say about Act 17:28.

That Paul intended to call his audience's attention to the familial resemblance and relationship that exists between God and humanity receives support from a survey of translations of Acts 17:28-29: The King James rendering of genos as "offspring" is followed by the New American Standard Bible, the New International Version, the Amplified Bible, the Rheims New Testament, the New American Bible, the New English Bible, and the New Revised Standard Version, as well as by Hugh Schonfield's so-called Authentic New Testament. The New Jerusalem Bible says that "We are all his children." The modern translation by J. B. Phillips concurs. Likewise, the 1990 Arabic New Testament says of God that we are his "children." The modem Hebrew New Testament, using a word derived from the root meaning "to beget," also says that we are God's "children." The paraphrastic Living Bible explains that we are the "sons" of God. The modern French version called Bonnes Nouvelles Aujourd'hui agrees, reporting that we are his "enfants."

For more information see: William Tyndale's 1525 New Testament has "generacion," and identifies humanity as "the generacion of God." The Calvinist Geneva Bible of 1560 follows Tyndale, using precisely the same terms. The Oxford English Dictionary cites Tyndale's use of the word as an illustration for the meaning of generation as "offspring, progeny."

The 1950 Arabic Catholic New Testament, published in Beirut, says that we are God's dhurriyya, which means that we are his "progeny," "descendents," "children," or "off-spring." The 1972 Turkish Bible uses precisely the same word (in its Turkicized form [ziirriyet]), with precisely the same meaning. Western versions have used analogous language. Deploying a word obviously cognate with the term genos, the 1556 Latin translation prepared by the Calvinist Theodore Beza says that we are the progenies of God. We are also progenie di Dio, or "God's progeny," according to the 1914 Italian Bible. This is the same word that the University of Chicago's Constantine Trypanis chooses to tran late genos in the original passage of Aratus's astronomical poem Phaenomena, from which Paul was quoting.

The 1991 Hebrew translation of the Bible Society in Israel says that we are God's se-sa-im, using the common modern Hebrew word for "descendants." The popular-- language German translation of the New Testament entitled Die Gute Nachricht says, "Von ihm stammen auch wir ab" ("We also descend from him"). The roughly equivalent modern-language Spanish New Testament entitled Dios Liega al Hombre, straightforwardly indicates that "Somos familia de Dios" ('We are the family of God"). The 1904 translation of the Bible into Farsi or Persian says that we are of the nasl-i Khuda, "the lineage of God."

Martin Luther's historic German Bible renders Acts 17:28 as "Wir sind seines Geschlechts" ('We are of his race") and expands on this, in the next verse, by saying that we are "gottlichs Geschlechts" ("of divine race"). This is a very strong claim. One of the standard manuals of German ety mology explains that the word Geschlecht means, essentially, "what strikes out in the same direction" or "things of similar kind." 'It was chiefly used -- in the sense of 'descent [Abstammung], [noble] extraction,' and in the sense of 'people of the same descent [Abstammungl.' " Konstantin Rosch's early twentieth-century Catholic New Testament concurs with Luther, explaining that "Wir sind von seinem Geschlecht" (i.e., again, "We are of his race"), "von Gottes Geschlecht" ("of God's race"), as does the 1958 translation by Rupert Storr ('Sind wir doch seines Geschlechtes"), which proceeds, like Luther's, to speak of our "divine race" ("Sind wir nun so gattlichen GescMechtes"). Ulrich Wilckens's 1972 translation uses precisely the same terminology. The relatively recent Einheitsiibersetzung, which takes its name from the fact that it represents a collaborative effort on the part of the Roman Catholics and the major Protestant denominations of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, renders the passage even more strikingly: "Wirsind von seiner Art," it says, which means "We are of his type," or "We are of his kind." James Moffatt's early twentieth-century translation declares that "We too belong to his race." "Car nous sonunes aussi de sa race," says the original Jerusalem Bible, as produced by the Ecole Biblique, which reads in the following verse that we are "de la race de Dieu": "We are of his race ... of the race of God."

Thus for Paul, humans are the offspring or the children of God. They are, as in the words of the Hebrew Bible. Accordingly, it seems reasonable to conclude that, for Paul, just as in ancient Semitic belief, God is the father of man--or, as the epistle to the Hebrews (12:9) puts it, "the Father of spirits." "Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation: and David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel our father, for ever and ever" (I Chronicles 29:10; compare Psalm 89:26). The Jewish opponents of Christ described in John 8:41 merely reflected traditional Hebrew belief when they claimed God as their father. "Ye are the children of the Lord your God," declares Deuteronomy 14:1. This is also the doctrine that appears to undergird Hebrews 2:11, where that epistle says of Christ, the divine Son, and of those whom he saves, that "both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one [ex henos]: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren." And again, those whom Christ calls "my brethren" in Matthew 25:40 are not limited to believing Christians, as if Jesus were summoning us only to treat with kindness the poor and afflicted whom we find theologically acceptable.

The Latter-day Saint understanding that humans are of the same genus or species as God is thus clearly biblical. "The line separating the divine from the human in ancient Judaism was not as absolute as is sometimes supposed." As the distinguished Anglican church historian Alan Richardson contends, the theologians who produced such classical creeds as the famous Definition of Faith of the fifth-century Council of Chalcedon, unduly dominated by the philosophy of their day, exaggerated the gulf between divine and human. And they have been enormously influential in subsequent Christian thought. Still, centuries of creedal Christianity notwithstanding, says Richardson, "God and man are fundamentally akin."

The references to this quote are too numerous to list, so if anyone wants them (doubtful) I would be glad to PM you with them.

Doc

~

 

[skylark1]

The references to this quote are too numerous to list, so if anyone wants them (doubtful) I would be glad to PM you with them.

Maybe so, but the link to Kevin Graham's words which you did not credit as his, but appear to be your words, is short and simple.
http://www.anti-mormonism-revealed.com/jp7.htm


I appreciate time time that you took to reply, and I will respond to your quotations form Kevin Graham and Daniel Peterson later.

 

[Doc T]

Maybe so, but the link to Kevin Graham's words which you did not credit as his, but appear to be your words, is short and simple.
http://www.anti-mormonism-revealed.com/jp7.htm


I appreciate time time that you took to reply, and I will respond to your quotations form Kevin Graham and Daniel Peterson later.

Perhaps I made the type too small or you did not read my post carefully, but I said

Regrettably, for Evangelicals there is nothing ambiguous or abstract about its meaning. So while LDS apologists have produced at least one verse that explicitly declares mankind to be of the same species as God, the Evangelical argument is completely void of verses that implicitly, let alone explicitly, state a creature/Creator dichotomy as they understand it. (Extracted from writings of Kevin Graham)

Look forward to your reply.

Doc

~

 

[skylark1]

Nah, I can read type that small, so it appears that I did not read your post carefully enough. My apologies for missing the reference. You might want to consider using either quotation marks, or the quotation feature with ellipses, so that it is easier to distinquish when your words end and the quotation begains. I think that your words ended with "hope you had a great weekend." BTW, I hope that your weekend was great as well.

I just have one question for now. If we are literally God's children, as LDS believe, and of the same species as God, then why are believers adopted as his children?


Romans 8
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:


Ephesians 1
5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

 

[Doc T]

Nah, I can read type that small, so it appears that I did not read your post carefully enough. My apologies for missing the reference. You might want to consider using either quotation marks, or the quotation feature with ellipses, so that it is easier to distinquish when your words end and the quotation begains. I think that your words ended with "hope you had a great weekend." BTW, I hope that your weekend was great as well.

I just have one question for now. If we are literally God's children, as LDS believe, and of the same species as God, then why are believers adopted as his children?


Romans 8
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:


Ephesians 1
5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

Great question. I'll try to have an answer by tomorrow.

Doc

~

 

[skylark1]

Doc,

Just wondering if you have an answer yet?

 

[Doc T]

Doc,

Just wondering if you have an answer yet?

Is there some easy way to tell what threads you have posted on and which ones you have not? Sorry, I could not remember where this post was.

I like the way that Robert Matthews put it:

Since it is “Israel” who now dispenses the gospel to all the world, and since the faithful are all gathered into “Israel,” thereby becoming heirs of the promises God made to the fathers, all nations and peoples may partake of the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant by accepting and obeying the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul said to the gentiles of his day: “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
“And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:27-29 ).

Thus, all who accept the gospel of Jesus Christ come into the covenant and are considered Israelites; they are truly “children of the covenant” (see 3 Ne. 20:24-27 )—if not by direct lineage, then by virtue of accepting the gospel. Even literal descendants of Abraham who do not accept the gospel for themselves are not “children of the covenant” in the same sense that faithful children are. It was in this sense that Jesus spoke to some literal descendants of Abraham as recorded in John 8:37-44 .

So I believe, though we are literal children of God, we are "adopted" into the covenant family of Abraham by entering into the covenant relationship through baptism. Thus, as King Benjamin explains to his people, that "because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters" (Mosiah 5:7).

Doc

~

 

[Romans5:1]

I just have one question for now. If we are literally God's children, as LDS believe, and of the same species as God, then why are believers adopted as his children?


Romans 8
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:


Ephesians 1
5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

And may I add Ephesians 2:1-3, which says,

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, (2) in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. (3) Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

If we're all these supposed literal offspring of the children of God, with the same nature as Him, then why are we characterized as dead, sons of disobedience, and by nature, children of wrath? Is God's nature characterized by death? by disobedience? by wrath?

 

[Frankie]

Is there some easy way to tell what threads you have posted on and which ones you have not? Sorry, I could not remember where this post was.

I like the way that Robert Matthews put it:



So I believe, though we are literal children of God, we are "adopted" into the covenant family of Abraham by entering into the covenant relationship through baptism. Thus, as King Benjamin explains to his people, that "because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters" (Mosiah 5:7).

Doc

~

Doc,, I hope you don't mind me jumping in and asking a question here. The lds scripture you posted caught my eye. Is this passage talking about the same king Benjamin that the Bible speaks of? If so, why does He use the name or title "Christ". This is not one of those things that I am really "up" on but I don't remember the OT using that name or title in referrence to Jesus. If I am wrong....anyone please feel free to point me to the scripture so I can mark it.

Thanks,,
Frankie

 

[Rescued One]

Before adoption into God's family, we are not His children. If I am wrong, please give me a reference.

Besides the verses that Romans posted, we have this:

John 8
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

How can a child of God be a child of the devil?

 

[Doc T]

And may I add Ephesians 2:1-3, which says,

If we're all these supposed literal offspring of the children of God, with the same nature as Him, then why are we characterized as dead, sons of disobedience, and by nature, children of wrath? Is God's nature characterized by death? by disobedience? by wrath?

I think that both you and GWit forgot is the fall of Adam in which we became carnal, sensual and devilish. Again quoting from King Benjamin (no Frankie, it is not the King Benjamin from the Bible, but from the BofM):

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)

Now I know you don't accept the BofM as scripture, but King Benjamin puts it in prospective. We are literal offsping of God. We are born here on this earth being made partakers of the fall of Adam and as such become a "natural man" and are thus, as Paul put it "by nature children of wrath" and thus by nature, due to the fall, children of the devil and will remain unless we yield "to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord"

I hope that clairifys it for all of you.

Doc

~

 

[Doc T]

Bump