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I'd rather not post all that again brother, but it clearly says that he is one. Not three persons.The Bible doesn't say He is only one person. It may never say "He is three distinct persons" but it certainly doesn't say He is only one person either.
The language we are using here is post-biblical language. This is the language of Christological debate and discussion; we shouldn't expect to find this language in the biblical texts since these debates did not take place until after the biblical texts were written.
It would be deeply tragic, however, to think that just because this language is post-biblical that it is wrong, however. There is much that the Bible does not go out of its way to say, such as--well--the Bible itself. The very language we use to speak about a collection of sacred writings is also post-biblical. Because there was no Bible until literally hundreds of years after the biblical texts were written. Indeed, the doctrine of the Trinity was an already established theological dogma of the Christian Church before there was even a defined New Testament Canon.
As such, it may not be particularly prudent to get hung up on this, because it is certainly going to be self-defeating.
-CryptoLutheran
That is your view brother, I don't see it changing(if it hasn't yet) by further discussion with me.The Bible demonstrates Three Divine Persons.
I'd rather not post all that again brother, but it clearly says that he is one. Not three persons.
Jesus did not have a human soul or a human spirit like us.
True, it only says that he is one. And that is what I am saying, a person has to add scripture to make it say are there separate persons instead of Just one being.Of course God is one. Nobody is disputing that. I said the Bible never mentions that God is "one person", and it doesn't. It doesn't say that. You will no more find the Bible saying "God is one person" than you will it saying "God is three persons". It says neither in so many words.
-CryptoLutheran
If you don’t teach Sunday School you are missing a calling. Excellent run down.I had a feeling maybe I was being too vague.
My question is what is our hope as Christians? What is it that we are looking forward to? What's the overall big picture point of the Christian religion?
The historic, orthodox Christian teaching is this: There is a good creator God who made everything, He is the author of the universe, and declared His creation to be "exceedingly good". But we also see a problem: suffering, sin, death. The Christian conviction is that these things are an aberration, a cruelty, a tyranny under which all of creation is currently subjugated. The entire biblical drama is ultimately the story of God's redemption coming home in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the reason God called Abraham out from Ur, He is the reason God established a covenant with the children of Jacob, He is the promised King Messiah from the Seed of David. It is through this Jesus that God redeems, rescues, restores, and renews all of creation. By His death and resurrection He has conquered sin, death, hell, and the devil and, our union with Him by grace, means that what God has done for Jesus He will do for us. As St. Paul writes, "If the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwells also in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also." (Romans 8:11). It is this promise of resurrection that we look forward to, to that day when this mortal shall put on immortality, this corruptible shall put on incorruptible, when it shall be said "Where O Death is your victory?" For death is swallowed up in victory, the victory of the children of God at Christ's glorious coming, when God shall make all things new, kingdom forever, world without end.
My hope as a Christian is that, at the end of all things, at the conclusion of history, the Lord Jesus will return. The dead shall be raised, flesh and bone shall walk again, because God shall destroy death utterly and completely--and there will be new heavens and new earth. Because God is unwilling that His creation perish in destruction and futility, but that all things shall be restored, made whole. Everlasting, unceasing, immortal and incorruptible life forever.
Fundamental, here, is that the Incarnation is not some transient episode. The Divine Logos did not simply put on a human mask, masquerade as one of us for a little while, and then discard His flesh and bone humanity after a little while. No, the Word became human. This One who was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary is, indeed, true God and truly human. As true man He is like us in all ways but without sin, He is not some temporary human, or human-like, or wearing a human suit. He is, indeed, very actually a human being in all that this means. There is, most truly, a human being seated at the right hand of the Father, because when the Word became flesh, when the Eternal Son united Himself to our humanity to become part of our human family it was forever. In this union of God and man the Creator and the created have been united in perfect unity of one Person. And it is through this Person, this God-Man, that death has been defeated, our sins washed away, and there is hope for a life that will never end.
So what is the Christian hope? What is all this about? What is the point of everything? What is Christianity anyway? If it's not any of this, then what is it?
-CryptoLutheran
True, it only says that he is one. And that is what I am saying, a person has to add scripture to make it say are there separate persons instead of Just one being.
I can agree that they are only one God. father son and holy spirit have separate reasons for being different operations they perform, but they remain and the same never becoming a separate person as each is continually within the other and they remain the same one being.In fact, maybe it could be helpful to offer some sort of explanation and history behind some of the language here.
Perhaps the key word here is hypostasis (plural hypostases). It's a fairly mundane Greek word, in some contexts it could be used to describe the sediment that fell to the bottom of a container of standing liquid. It is literally the conjoining of two other Greek words: hypo meaning "under", and "stasis" meaning "standing [still]", as such a sediment at the bottom of a liquid is hypostasis, the stuff under the liquid in a container of standing, still liquid. But the word also had some use in philosophical circles, where it was used sometimes as meaning a particular thing, a substance or subsistance. In philosophical circles it was sometimes used interchangeably with the word ousia, meaning "being".
In the early centuries of Christianity as various Christological debates broiled and bubbled, and it became increasingly necessary to use more precise, well-defined language, these words hypostasis and ousia gained a particular use in theology.
Sabellianism pushed things in this way considerably, since for Sabellius, Praxeas, and Noetus the word "hypostasis" and "ousia" were basically interchangeable. So they said that God was a singular hypostasis of one ousia, what we behold merely by perception is God revealing Himself through three prosopa ("masks" or "faces"). This introduces another word, and it's another important one: prosopon (plural prosopa) which, as I said means "mask" or "face", it's standard Latin equivelant, however, is persona (plural personae) which is where English gets "person".
The word hypostasis was used to describe the specific, particular, distinct "that" we were referring to when speaking of the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. That is, to speak of the hypostasis of the Father, or the hypostasis of the Son, and that these were two distinct hypostases. That is, the Father is a distinct that from the distinct that of the Son. Because Father-ness and Son-ness aren't the same, there is a that from which the other that is distinct. The Father begat the Son, but the Son did not begat the Father, since begetting is unique to that which the Father is, and begotten is unique to that which the Son is.
So the Father begat the Son.
The Son is begotten of the Father.
Now the 4th century heresiarch Arius taught that this, that the Father has begat the Son, that the Son is begotten of the Father, meant also that the Son must therefore be less than the Father. The Son must be a creature. Now, the Son may be the most powerful and profound creature, greater than all other creatures by infinite magnitudes--but still a creature. In fact the Son is so glorious that Arius and the Arians still called Him God, it's just that the Son was God in a very different way than the Father was. Since the Son wasn't eternal, but created.
Arius wasn't saying this just to be a contrarian. Arius was a student of a very famous Christian teacher from Antioch, Lucian of Antioch. Lucian was famous for his opposition against Sabellianism. As such, Arius was, in his own way, trying to insure that Sabellianism wasn't cropping its head up over there in Alexandria where he was presbyter.
For Arius, therefore, the Father and the Son were very much distinct hypostases, and their ousia was perhaps similar but ultimately different. As such the Arians liked to say that the Son is heteroousia (of a different being than the Father), or perhaps softening it up more by saying the Son is homoiousia (of a similar being as the Father).
When these debates started to really get heated, according to a contemporary historian one couldn't even go to the market to buy bread without getting into an argument with someone about whether the Son was of the same being or a different or similar being. These things largely only were going on in the eastern half of the Roman Empire however, as Arius had been in Egypt and then moved to Palestine. The Roman emperor, Constantine, who had made the Christian religion legal, and recently just unified both halves of the Roman empire under his rule, and was giving Christianity a large deal of imperial patronage saw these debates as problematic. So he figured that if he just made all the bishops come together at one spot and debate it at one big council that they should be able to figure it out. Constantine had no care one way or the other about the direction the council would go, he had no dog in that fight, he just wanted a resolution regardless of what the resolution was.
And so, in the summer of 325 AD about 300 bishops convened at the city of Nicea near Constantinople. And over the course of the length of the council, the bishops argued, and argued, and argued, and argued. But as things were going, something of a consensus was emerging among many, that neither a Sabellian nor Arian position could be acceptable. And a particular word was being thrown around, though it was controversial (because some Sabellians had also used it), that word was homoousia (of the same being). And, eventually, most of the bishops were able to agree to a written symbol of faith--a creed.
Of course the council didn't actually settle the debate, in fact some of Constantine's closest spiritual advisors and friends were themselves Arian or sympathetic to Arianism/Arius, including his biographer Eusebius of Caesarea, and the man who would eventually baptize Constantine on his deathbed, Eusebius of Nicomedia. After Nicea Constantine would come to largely embrace and support the Arian cause, exile pro-Nicene bishops like Athanasius, and after his death the two sons of Constantine would be themselves split over this very issue, though the Arian son would ultimately gain power, and Arianism would have a lot of political power for most of the 4th century until Julian the Apostate.
In all of this, a particular language emerged to speak of God: That there are three Hypostases of one Ousia, and therefore the three are, indeed, one. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, not by a confusion, but by their unity of Being. For what the Father is, the Son is also; and what the Father and the Son are, the Spirit is also. For if the Father is God, then the Son is also God, not another god, but one and the same God. If the Being is one, then the Son can be nothing other than what the Father is, God of God, truly God of truly God. Indeed:
"We believe ... in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, the only-begotten; that is, of the being of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of the same being as the Father; by whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth." - from the text of the 325 Nicene symbol
-CryptoLutheran
Yes brother I just replied to that one, I reply to the first one I see and continue on down the line.I made an effort to try and explain some of the basic language we use here, the distinction between ousia and hypostasis in a post above. I would encourage you to look at it, because I get the distinct impression that you are going to be confused about what we believe if you don't understand the basic vocabulary.
God is one Being (ousia) yes. And there are three Hypostases of one Being.
-CryptoLutheran
I can agree that they are only one God. father son and holy spirit have separate reasons for being different operations they perform, but they remain and the same never becoming a separate person as each is continually within the other and they remain the same one being.
But I cannot agree that each would have a different persona/person/mask because if you have seen one, you have seen them all. When the son became as flesh he looked as a man would look, but within he still contained the fullness of the father and was the father.
1. We will be as the angels with a spiritual body.
As to the changing of the body. We are made like the Lord(spiritual), we are changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. Putting off this corruptible flesh and putting on incorruption. Casting off the former man(carnal,man of flesh) and putting on the quickening spirit the second man. Because flesh and blood can never inherit the kingdom of heaven, and not just the dead are changed but everyone is changed in an instant into the new spiritual form. The first adam was a living soul the last adam was a quickening spirit. Flesh and blood can never inherit the kingdom of heaven. We will be as the angels are in heaven. Not of Flesh but spiritual(celestial creatures). You have to remember Christ had to become flesh, he was not always a being of flesh but one of the spirit.
When Christ died he became a quickening Spirit and ministered to the other spirits that were in Prison.1 Peter 3:18-20
When Christ was risen he rose spiritually, that is why he told Mary not to touch him. John 20:17
Then when he had completed his work spiritually he said the apostles could touch him. John 20:26-27
Flesh and Blood cannot enter or inherit the kingdom of heaven.1 Cor 15:50
That is Christ became a quickening spirit. 1 Peter 3:18
Christ's original form was a spirit, that is why he had to become flesh. John 1:1-14, 1 Timothy 3:16
When Christ appeared unto Paul he appeared in the spirit not in the flesh. Acts 9:3-6, Acts 22:6-10, Acts 26:14-18
When we are in heaven we will be just as the angels are. Mat 28:28-30, Mark 12:24-25
When we are resurrected on the day of Judgment we will all be changed. 1 Cor 15:52
Some ask how the dead are raised and in what body. 1 Cor 15:35
Paul says they are fools to ask, he says that which we sow in the flesh must be quickened. 1 Cor 15:35
We are sown in a natural body(corruption). 1 Cor 15:44,43
And we are raised in a spiritual body. 1 Cor 15:44
That which comes first is the natural body of Flesh. 1 Cor 15:46-48
That which comes second is a spiritual body. 1 Cor 15:46,44-45
We are not raised in corruption. 1 Cor 15:43,50,53-54
But in incorruption. 1 Cor 15:42-46,52-54
There are bodies both terrestrial and celestial. 1 Cor 15:40
We will be raised as celestial beings, quickening spirits. 1 Cor 15:42,44-46
The fire of vengeance brought by Christ destroys everything and all Flesh. (Matthew 24:29-31; Micha 1:3-4; Isaiah 66:15-17, 26:21, 2:9-22; Zephaniah 1:18,2:2,3:8,1:2-3; Haggi 2:6-7; Malichi 4:1; Joel 2:10,31; Hosea 10:8; 1 Thess 1:7-9; 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 6:12-17; Revelation 20:9).
2. The promise is eternal life with Christ in either the first or the second Resurrection
There are two resurrections, the first for those who were killed for Christ.
Revelation 20:4-6
And the second for the rest of the dead and those that were alive at the destruction of the heavens and the earth by fire at Christ's coming.
1 Thess 4:13-17
Acts 7:59-60
1 Corinthians 15:6
1 Corinthians 15:18-23
Revelation 20:11-15
The Lord Judges every man by their words and deeds on the day of Judgment. Now we know that the Righteous will not remember the former things, the things of this life after they are judged. (Isaiah 66:17, Revelation 21:4-5)
3. So if you question is where is the hope, it remains in Christ. The spiritual form we are resurrected in does not change what Christ did.
Please give me a verse or set of verses suggesting that Jesus has a human soul and human spirit.
1. Yes throughout the Gospel the son speaks o the father, but the father was in him and he was in the father and they are one. If a man has seen the son he has seen the father. They are the same being but each form(father, son, holy spirit) with a different purpose a different function. Just as water has different forms but remains water still, each form appears different but is still only just water.Except that He wasn't the Father, and He never claimed to be the Father. Time and again, over and over, throughout all four Gospels Jesus continues to speak of Someone other than Himself, and this Someone He calls "Father". For example, what do we see when Jesus is baptized in the Jordan by St. John the Baptist? There is a voice from heaven which says, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased". Why do we see this happening? We don't have Jesus talking to Himself. We really do have Someone speaking to another Someone. We have the Father speaking to the Son. We, throughout the Gospels, have Jesus speaking to and about Someone that is not Himself--the Father. He prays "Our Father who art in heaven" and He prays, "I thank You Father" and He prays, "Glorify Me with the glory I had with you before the world began" and He prays, "If it be at all possible, remove this cup from Me, but nevertheless not My will but Your will be done".
In the prologue to John's Gospel the very opening statement reads, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God, this One was in the beginning with God and through this One all things were made, and nothing that was made was made without Him" It is this One, the Word, only-begotten Son of the Father, that we then read, "became flesh and dwelt among us".
Yes, we do behold the Father in the Son, not because the Son is the Father, but because the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father; because the Son makes the Father known (John 1:18), because the Incarnate Son is the "icon of the invisible God".
The Son is sent by the Father, it is the Son's loving and humble obedience to the Father, from before even the world began, that He willingly and humbly became human, emptying Himself, "Though in the form of God did not consider equality with God something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking on the form of a slave, born of human similitude, and being found human humbled Himself to obedience to the point of death, even death on the cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Most assuredly, yes, the Son is the same Being with the Father. But He is not the Father, He is Someone distinct from the Father.
There is no division in God. Nor do we believe this. God is not divided. But the unity of God does not lead to a confusion of the Three. The Father is the Father, and not the Son or the Spirit; not because of division, but because there is distinction--there is a realness to the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father can say that He loves the Son and the Son can say He loves the Father, and they are not lying--this is true. Love comes pouring forth from One to Another. It is real love. A love which we, by God's grace, are invited to share in by our union to God's Son in the power of the Spirit.
-CryptoLutheran
Well brother there is a lot of Greek to go through tonight on my end but I will be back with a response tomorrow.The fundamental flaw, here, of course is that Jesus had flesh and bones in the resurrection.
You've made a common mistake, that when St. Paul makes a distinction between the "natural body" and the "spiritual body" that this a distinction between solid flesh and immaterial spirit. It's not. But it's not altogether your fault, the problem is that the translation is confusing. English doesn't have a good way to translate the word Paul uses here.
Paul speaks of the present body not as a body of flesh, but as a soma psuchekos. Psuchekos is the adjective form of the word psuche, or "soul" ("breath"). The body is sown a psuchekos body (soma is Greek for "body"), it is raised a pneumatikos body. Like before, pneumatikos is the adjective form of the word pneuma, or "spirit" ("breath" or "wind"). The contrast is not between material flesh and immaterial spirit, the contrast is between a body that is alive by "soul" and a body that is alive by "spirit". The bodily composition hasn't changed, it's still very much solid, material flesh. What's changed is the way in which the body is alive.
Which is why if you want to know what Paul means by a "spiritual body" you are going to the wrong place when you read about us being like the angels in the resurrection, since Jesus doesn't say we are like the angels in the resurrection in that we will have spiritual bodies like they have; instead He says we will be as the angels in that we won't be married or given in marriage. Angels don't have spiritual bodies, they don't have bodies at all, and Scripture never says anything like this about them.
If you want to know what Paul means when he speaks of a "spiritual body" you should be looking to Romans chapter 8, pay attention, "If the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwells also in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also." That's what makes the resurrection body spiritual, not that it is made of some kind of immaterial spirit-matter, but that it is made alive in the quickening power of the Holy Spirit.
This distinction between psuchekos and pneumatikos is also why Paul says that the first man became a living soul and the second man became a life-giving spirit. He is not saying that Adam had a body comprised of soul-matter while Jesus has a body of spirit-matter. He is saying that the kind of life Adam had, and the kind of life Jesus has are fundamentally different because Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus was made alive in the power of the Spirit, and so shall we.
Otherwise Jesus is lying when He says, "Touch Me and see that it is I Myself, for a spirit does not have flesh and bone as I have."
Further, at the empty tomb Jesus isn't telling Mary not to touch Him, He is telling her not to cling to Him. Mary sees her Lord, He's back, so now she wants to cling to Him and never let Him go. But He tells her that she must not do this, because He must ascend to the Father. She could not cling to Him because He would be leaving them. Of course He would not be leaving them alone, as He promised that He would send Another, the Holy Spirit to be their comforter, and that He would never really be gone, but that He would be with them even unto the end of the age.
Again, I get it, this is an easy mistake to make because English lacks an appropriate word to translate psuchekos. I've seen some use a neologism, "soulish" to try and capture the basic idea of the word, and it has some traction, but you won't find "soulish" in any dictionaries that I'm aware of. As such, translators have done their best by using "natural" to try and capture Paul's meaning here, not to describe physicality, but the present "natural" mortality and corruption of the body.
-CryptoLutheran
The trinity means God is one.I'd rather not post all that again brother, but it clearly says that he is one. Not three persons.
There’s still a distinction between God the Father and God the Son, they aren’t one and the same Person as Modalism teaches. If this were the case then that would mean Jesus was praying to himself.1. Yes throughout the Gospel the son speaks o the father, but the father was in him and he was in the father and they are one. If a man has seen the son he has seen the father. They are the same being but each form(father, son, holy spirit) with a different purpose a different function. Just as water has different forms but remains water still, each form appears different but is still only just water.
John 10:30, 36-38
30 I and my Father are one.
36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.
John 14:9-11
9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?
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.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.
Collosians 1:14-15
14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Collosians 2:8-9
8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Romans 8:29
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
2. The word of God is Christ and he indeed became flesh because that is his function/purpose. But he is still one and the same with the father and the holy spirit.
3. He has a different purpose than the father does, but that is the only difference between son and father one does one thing the other another but they remain the same.
4. And i agree there is love when the Lord as the Father says he loves the son( not in that he loves himself as if prideful) he loves the other as his son since that is the form he took on, the form of one that is a servant.
Actually, we don’t need external refference for the Trinity, the doctrine can be summed up from the Bible. The Bible makes mention of three persons in Matthew 28:19, of course it’s wholly a mystery whether these persons are names of God, persons of God, or forms of God. But now if we look to the Bible we see each person being called God, the Father is called God, Jesus is called God, and the Holy Spirit is called God. So from there we can understand that there are three co eternal persons who make one God.The bible doesn't say he is three distinct persons, only that he is one. You have to add to the bible to make it say they are three distinct persons.
Hi RLHWe can derive Trinity from Godhead. However, the direct definition from the Strongs KJV is:
Theotes: G2320:
The KJV translates Strong's G2320 in the following manner: Godhead (1x).
Biblical uses:
deity
The bolded is the important part.
the state of being God, Godhead
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