Jesus and the Trinity

[hybrid]

Hi Hybrid,



Nice to talk to you again,

I believe it would be fair to say Jesus is truly God, but not the "one True God". He is God from the very True God, He is the express image of His Father. This makes Him "truly God", but He still acknowledges the Father as His God, (John 20:17). All things have been given to Him by His Father, including equality with the Father.

God Bless

Harlin

so what is your objection with the nicene creed, if i may ask?

i don't suppose armstrong christology has conflict with it?

 

[MarcServet]

The apostolic Fathers unanimously taught that the "we" in Gen 1:26, refers to the trinity:

1. 74 AD Epistle of Barnabas: "For the Scripture says concerning us, while He speaks to the Son, "Let Us make man after Our image, and after Our likeness" (Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter VI.—The Sufferings of Christ, and the New Covenant, Were Announced by the Prophets.)
2. 150 AD Justin Martyr: Speaking of Jewish theologians Justin calls the Jewish teaching that God spoke to angels a hersey: "In saying, therefore, ‘as one of us, ’[Moses] has declared that [there is a certain] number of persons associated with one another, and that they are at least two. For I would not say that the dogma of that heresy which is said to be among you (The Jews had their own heresies which supplied many things to the Christian heresies) is true, or that the teachers of it can prove that [God] spoke to angels, or that the human frame was the workmanship of angels. But this Offspring, which was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the Father before all the creatures." (Dialogue of Justin Martyr, with Trypho, a Jew: Chapter LXII.—The Words "Let Us Make Man")
3. 180 AD Irenaeus "It was not angels, therefore, who made us, nor who formed us, neither had angels power to make an image of God, nor any one else, except the Word of the Lord, nor any Power remotely distant from the Father of all things. For God did not stand in need of these [beings], in order to the accomplishing of what He had Himself determined with Himself beforehand should be done, as if He did not possess His own hands. For with Him were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks, saying, "Let Us make man after Our image and likeness; " [Gen. 1:26]" (Against Heresies 4:20:1).
4. 200 AD Tertullian: "If the number of the Trinity also offends you, as if it were not connected in the simple Unity, I ask you how it is possible for a Being who is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to speak in plural phrase, saying, "Let us make man in our own image, and after our own likeness; " whereas He ought to have said, "Let me make man in my own image, and after my own likeness," as being a unique and singular Being? In the following passage, however, "Behold the man is become as one of us," He is either deceiving or amusing us in speaking plurally, if He is One only and singular. Or was it to the angels that He spoke, as the Jews interpret the passage, because these also acknowledge not the Son? Or was it because He was at once the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, that He spoke to Himself in plural terms, making Himself plural on that very account? Nay, it was because He had already His Son close at His side, as a second Person, His own Word, and a third Person also, the Spirit in the Word, that He purposely adopted the plural phrase, "Let us make; "and, "in our image; "and, "become as one of us." (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, Chapter XII. Other Quotations from Holy Scripture Adduced in Proof of the Plurality of Persons in the Godhead.)
5. 200 AD Tertullian: Tertullian rejects the idea that God was speaking to Angels because our head is the creator, not a creature: "Since then he is the image of the Creator (for He, when looking on Christ His Word, who was to become man, said, "Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness"), how can I possibly have another head but Him whose image I am? For if I am the image of the Creator there is no room in me for another head" (Tertullian, Book V, Elucidations, Chapter VIII.—Man the Image of the Creator, and Christ the Head of the Man.)
6. 200 AD Tertullian: "In the first place, because all things were made by the Word of God, and without Him was nothing made. Now the flesh, too, had its existence from the Word of God, because of the principle, that here should be nothing without that Word. "Let us make man," said He, before He created him, and added, "with our hand," for the sake of his pre-eminence, that so he might not be compared with the rest of creation." (Tertullian: On the Resurrection of the Flesh, Elucidations, Chapter V.—Some Considerations in Reply Eulogistic of the Flesh. It Was Created by God.)
7. Origen: "it was to Him that God said regarding the creation of man, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness." (Origen Against Celsus, Book V, Chapter XXXVII)
8. Novatian: "For who does not acknowledge that the person of the Son is second after the Father, when he reads that it was said by the Father, consequently to the Son, "Let us make man in our image and our likeness; " and that after this it was related, "And God made man, in the image of God made He him? "Or when he holds in his hands: "The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord from heaven? " (A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity, Chapter XXVI. Argument.—Moreover, Against the Sabellians He Proves that the Father is One, the Son Another.)

I will no longer question the validity of some of the statements of the early fathers you presented, but I doubt this also can be the statement of Barnabas and Ireneus since what I knew from Ireneus he was not really a proponent of Trinity knor believed that the Son was eternal.

There are two biblical reasons that I do not believed to the statements of this some early fathers who were the forerunners of this heresy doctrine Trinity:

1. The Trinitarians do really point out here that the speaker among the three persons of God was the Father and the other two were the listeners. This statement could be really be the reasoning to those who really literally believed that God are more than one. In biblical aspect this could not be true to the case of the true nature of one God, because Jesus was the Word and this Word was the voice of God once being heard in the OT as God being revealed thru hearing, thesame Word spoken by God in creation that created all things(as thru Jesus all things were created). Since Word(pre-incarnate Jesus) was an spoken Word being heard the proceeded from the mouth of God, it is illogical to think that God once speaks to His own Word that proceeds from His mouth.

2. When God said "Let us make man in our image". (Take note "Let us make(not "Let us create") man"). When God released the said statement He did not come yet come to an actual creation of the man, God foreknowledge and imformed His angels that they will come to make man after their image. Of course, angels too are also in the image of God, then how come the angels being part in making man after the image of God? Angels as a messenger were part of the plan of salvation of the man in assisting and mould the man into perfection to become an image God.
Then after God said "Let us make man..." the Bible tells us that God then proceed created man in His own image, in the image of God He created man. "His" and "He" referring alone to God not many who created man.
As you can see in verse 26 God informed His plan to angels to make man after their image, and then followed in verse 27 that God proceeded in creating man alone.

 

[Harlin]

Who says the KJV scholars are more honest than modern day translators?where are the manuscripts the KJV scholars used? I believe some people are honest and some are not honest in any day including today, and includeing the 17th century and including the kjv scholars, the proof is not in who they are or when they lived but in their words and the facts that either back up their words or don't.
The kjv conflicted with the geneva bible , with the tyndale bible. those were popular bibles of the day and people then rejected the kjv for those reasons. however roughly 75 percent of the tyndale bible is used in the KJV.

"it is therefore evident that the translators of 1611 had before them four Bibles which had come under Waldensian influences: the Diodati in Italian, the Olivetan in French, the Lutheran in German, and the Genevan in English. We have every reason to believe that they had access to at least six Waldensian Bibles written in the old Waldensian vernacular" Benjamin Warfield, Collections of Opinions and Reviews, Vol. II, p 99.

The Waldensians had the "received text", the translators of the 1611 King James Version used these Waldensian Bibles, that to me, makes the KJV most authentic. During the Dark Ages, God's Word went into the wilderness for 1260 yrs, this Word of God came out of the wilderness at the reformation, that is where the Waldensians fit in, they brought the recieved texts out of the mountains, or wilderness. With a little study of Daniel and Revelation you can find out where God's Word came from at the reformation.

my objection to using jehovah for theos is that is not what theos means. it has nothing to do with my doctrine about the humanity of Jesus.

Well if it is not what it means then why do the Jehovahs witnesses translate it that way. They do not believe that Jesus is God, yet in translating Theos to mean Jehovah, they prove from their own Bible that Jesus is Jehovah. Your not making any sense to me.

It would be wrong to only look for translations that support ones views. but I don't do that. what is one to do when one has several bibles that all say something slightly different on a particular verse? your solution appparently is to take the kjv and forget the rest. my solution is to examine the evedince through greek interliniars, concordances, commentaries, greek dicitonaries, etc and then determine as best I can which is correct. My solution is therefore not nonsensical. your accusation is based on the assumption that I do no research. I don't do what you acccuse me of doing.

Exactly. No confusion for here.

It doesn't say that it says 'the word was made flesh'.

Well thats true. Hebrews 10:5 tells us that it was God (His Father) who prepared a body for Him.

It is nonsensical to say gods word is a he. just as it would be nonsensical to say my words are a he. God's word did not turn into a 2 cell fetus, that in my book is nonsense supreme. you accuse me of being nonsensical but offer no examples

Not if God's Word is a He. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we heheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth"John 1:14

John clearly thought the Word was a He. Only Jesus fills this description, to say the Word is anything else you have to wrest the scriptures of their meaning.

No, I said a literal translation of the verse would result in the word of godbeing made a clump of flesh. because flesh without bone to support it would fall into a clump. I used that to prove that you take john 1:14 figuratively, in that you take flesh as a syncedoche for Jesus. a synecdoche is a figure of speech whereby the lesser stands in for the greater, in this case, flesh the lesser stands in for Jesus the greater.

Sounds like you are taking the text literally, not figuratively. Literally the Word would have become a lump of literal flesh. Figuratively, the Word became human, of like flesh. I do take this figuratively.

You contradict yourself. first you say Jesus and the father aren't 2 gods, then you say the father is god and Jesus too (also, and ) is god.

You need to reread my posts. I have never said there are not two Gods, I have never said that they are two Gods composing one God as you suggested. What I did say is that Jesus is God, but not the one true God that is spoken of in the Bible. They both are God, but the Father is the original, one true God. Jesus is God by virtue of His coming forth from the Father.

Hebrews 1:1-2 compares Jesus to the prophets of old, both are said to have had god speak in them.the prophets of old are not mediators , Jesus is. that is a different subject. Jesus being created doesn't negate himi from having the ability to be a mediator between man (1st adam) and god. the second adam is mediating between the first adam and god.

You just proved my point here.

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2. hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds" Heb 1:1-2

This proves that the Son of God created the worlds. God created the worlds "by" Him, not by himself. If He did not exist in the beginning, how could God use the Son to create the worlds?.

Jesus didn't come to just be a prophet though did He?......like I have said before, He is a package deal, He is God's own Son, he cannot be compared to the prophets of old as merely a vessel for God to speak through. He is our Mediator. Saying a created being could die for our sins, a human sacrifice is all that is needed to atone for the worlds transgression of God's holy law.........I reject that theology completely. God gave His own Son because that was what was required to justify us, not another one like us, otherwise Adam could have died for Eves sins.

God speaks through me and in me just as he did in prophets of old and just as he did in Jesus. Do you not remember the verse that says 'we shall be like him and see him as he is'', or the verse that says
"greater things than these shall ye do for I go to my father."?

Yeah, like Him in character, but this still does not make us the literal divine children of God, we are adopted sons and daughters, there is a difference. We will not be like Jesus in that we will be able to mediate between God and man. And yes, I do believe God can work wonders through us if we have faith, just like He used Paul and Elijah and many others.

Jeremiah 31:22 How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.

Mary went around a man or compassed a man to get the thing (male seed) that God created. No man fertilized her egg, god did. If marys egg wasn't used then she isn't the mother of JEsus.

I believe that Mary is the mother of Jesus. Again I am not going to try and explain what God deems to be a mystery. The bible says that Jesus came from the seed of David, that was in Mary's geneology so I believe it. The bible also says that Mary was conceived of the Holy Spirit, it does not say that God created male human seed and fertilized Mary's egg, that is what you want to believe so you are trying to make scripture say that. God said that He would create a "new" thing, well taking human male seed and fertilizing human female eggs is not a "new" thing. However, humanity mixed with divinity, that is new.

bad translation therefore your conclusions are founded on falsitys.

here is what god actually said.

1ti 3:16kai; oJmologoumevnwß mevga ejsti;n to; th'ß eujsebeivaß [[musthvrion: J;oßejfanerwvqh ejn sarkiv, ejdikaiwvqh ejn pneuvmati, w~fqh ajggevloiß, ejkhruvcqh ejn e~qnesin, ejpisteuvqh ejn kovsmw/, ajnelhvmfqh ejn dovxh/

The greek word translated incorrectly as god is

Even with that translation it still in my opinion doesn't change the meaning.

"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: "who, which" was manifest in the flesh............etc" 1 Timothy 3:16. If it was manifest in the flesh, the mystery of godliness, then it still must have been Jesus, who else would be manifest in the flesh?....Who else could reveal the Father in the flesh, not just His words. He was the mystery of godliness which was manifest in the flesh. I have no problem with that.

You believe that because he is the son of god he has to descend in some way from god . I believe the fact that god created a male seed andused this creation of his to fertilize Mary's egg makes him the father of Jesus. You apparently can't see how this makes him the son of god. to me it is plain as day.

Well yes I do, how else do you get a literal Son?.....A child is not your child unless it comes from your substance. Otherwise He is just another creation of God, just like we are. We are told quite plainly that Jesus is the Son of God, begotten of the Father.

well I reject your solution based on jer 31:22 and that god is a spirit and to form Jesus a man of body soul and spirit outof spirit doesn't make sense, plus it would mean god took a part of his spirit and morphed it into flesh. which is nonsensical to me

God is not just spirit, He has a physical body and a spirit. Just like us, if we are made in His image, it would not make sense then. Daniels vision clearly shows two persons in heaven. There is also a description. (Daniel 7:9). Jesus came in the express image of His Father, and we are made in their image, we are not just spirit, although we have one.

God was in christ and will be in christ resurecting the dead. so to say christ resurects the dead means god resurects the dead because as Jesus said his father does the work not jesus. jesus can't do anything so he can't resurect the dead.

John 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

The father that dwelleth in Jesus doeth the resurection. God dwelleth in Jesus and Jesus isn't the one who indwells him. you can't be the one you're in. water isn't the glass it is in.

That is a misinterpretation of scripture to make it fit your desired point.

John 5:25-26 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. 26. For as the Father hath life in himself: so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself"

When the Father gives something to the Son, it means it is now His, it does not mean that the Father is still going to keep it just for himself and only exercise that gift through the Son as you are implying. You twisting scripture is the only way to make it fit your interpretation. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, not the Father.

When Jesus was on earth He was our example. All His divinity was laid aside for a time, He could not exercise any power that we do not have access to, otherwise He would have had an unfair advantage. Jesus did completely the Fathers will, and relied on the Father for His all. He showed us how to do it. This does not mean that the Godhead was not His own, as Paul tells us differently.

However, when Jesus returns to resurrect the dead, He returns in all His glory and power. All things have been given to Him.

"As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him" John 17:2

Clearly here it is Jesus that gives life to those whom the Father has given Him, it is not the Father giving Him the life as He gives it to us, Jesus already has the life in himself. We are Christ's and Christ is God's.

God Bless,

Harlin

 

[ChrisBot]

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