It seems to me that John is speaking figuratively. I do not think Jesus was literally in God's bosom. I think what John is trying to convey is that Jesus had a close and special relationship with God, which is why he was able to convey the true nature of God to his followers. Also, Jesus could have made the Father known without having physically seen God. I'm guessing you have not seen Jesus or God physically, but you can make them known to others by talking about them, describing them, etc. Also presumably you have a close relationship with Jesus and God even though you have never physically seen them. I don't know why we need to think John is speaking literally here and not figuratively. But you are free to read it how you want to.
It’s not anymore figurative then when Christ says the following:
Believe me that I
am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.
John 14:11
Or when he says that he will be in us, obviously this is literal, just as it says the Holy Spirit will be in us, Christ and the Father in dwell in each other and Christ will indwell in us and vice versa. The Bible says Christ revealed God to us because he is the very image of God the Father who is invisible to our eyes apart from the only begotten Son:
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation:
Colossians 1:15
Christ doesn’t reveal the Father simply by talking about him, he does the all works he sees the Father doing, all means all, if Christ said all which he did, then he could claim to do things only God could do, and does he not say he who has seen me has seen the Father? Also another problem with your heretical viewpoint, if Christ merely reveals the Father and makes him known simply by speaking and preaching about him, how then did God speak to the Old Testament prophets how did he speak to Moses as a man speaks to his friend? If only Christ reveals the Father as John 1:18 clearly states, then either no one saw or knew God before Christ was born or created in your viewpoint which would contradict the Old Testament or we can say Christ pre-existed his birth and people saw God the Father through him and spoke to the Son that revealed God the Father being the only begotten God in the bosom of the Father that makes him known which would make sense of the events where Old Testament prophets and patriarchs like Abraham and Moses spoke to God on a personal level, if the Son is not God who exists eternally with the Father, then John 1:18 makes no sense in light of the Old Testament.
This is speculation on your part. You might be able to infer this from the Bible based on how you interpret figurative teachings/language, but it is not explicitly taught. Also, the Logos is only mentioned once at the very beginning of John. Paul does not talk about a "divine Logos that is Christ" and John only mentions the Logos in a highly figurative introduction to his gospel. But I guess that is lost on those you desperately want Jesus to be the incarnation of some divine essence.
The prologue of John says the Logos and Word of God that is also God by nature and essence brought all things into being and created everything, so in your view when Paul says Christ Christ brought all things into being, he’s actually talking about something else or a creature, if the Apostle Paul was not talking about the Logos here, then he would contradict John the Apostle. I have no idea what you mean by “incarnation of some divine essence,” but it seems the Bible is extremely and overwhelmingly against your Socinian theology.
Again, not sure what it means to be a "mere" man. Didn't realize you could be something "more" than a man and still be a man.
I think it’s pretty clear what “mere man” means. In the case of Christ he is man, yet not mere man, he is God, yet not merely God, he is both God and man. The same way humanity is not merely body nor is it merely soul, it is both soul and body.
God is doing the work. He is just doing it through Jesus. Peter says as much in the passage from acts that you so casually brushed off “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know" Acts 2:22. So tell me, who did the miracles, wonders and signs? Who poured out his Spirit at Pentecost just as Joel fortold? God did... through his agent Jesus. If you want to believe otherwise, go ahead. I don't need to convince you of anything.
Quote me anything in Joel 2 that describes God doing anything through a mediator or agent, Joel foretold God doing all these works himself, and the New Testament says Christ has done all these works. Nothing in Joel mentions a mediator or agent, the person that pours out his Spirit in Joel is God not a mediator of God, the Acts 2 both confirms Christ did these works proving him to be God by nature himself, yet distinct from the Father who sent him, and your seriously asking for explicit references to the Trinity in the New Testament?
That verse you quoted says Jesus and God both receive honor. I explained what I thought that meant. While you might disagree with my interpretation, that verse does not say that Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit are all co-equal and co-eternal persons who share a divine essence and together constitute a triune God who is the one called Yahweh in the Old Testament. NO ONE in the bible explicitly makes such a claim and I doubt you could even implicitly make that claim using just scripture. I believe what the bible teaches. I am under no obligation to believe church Creeds nor am I concerned whether or not someone on the internet, or the "Catholic" church, or some random "pastor/religious leader" thinks I'm a heretic.
Wrong, it doesn’t say they will both receive honor, the Greek word “kathos” translated in John 5:23 as “just” literally means according to the manner or degree of something:
Strong's Greek: 2531. καθώς (kathos) -- just as, as
Christ is explicitly saying honor me in the same manner you honor the Father, your explanation of this passage is showed to be false as soon as we carefully read what the passage says clearly, therefore Christ is explicit claiming to be co-equal with God here, if he is co-equal he has to be equally God with the Father since there is no one equal to God apart from God also making him co-eternal, I was able to logically prove all this just with one verse from the New Testament. I don’t expect you to believe in the Church or its creed when you don’t even believe in what the Bible says, yet prefer the reasoning of your incoherent and heretical Socinian philosophy, that is what makes you a heretic, not me simply deciding that you are one.
Interesting you say that, since Jesus tells his disciples that they will sit on thrones and judge Israel with him
Matthew 19:28. So obviously Jesus does gives the right to judge to those who follow him. It's not something he keeps just for himself. You are spouting dogma instead of understanding what scripture says.
That only happens when the Son of man sits on his throne with his glory, a glory according to Christ that they will bear witness to, it no where mentions that they will possess this glory with him in his kingdom, the glory of Christ is exclusive to himself even in Matthew 19:28 and the disciples will only judge Israel when the Son of man sits in his throne with all his glory and deems it fit, sounds a lot like God.
Again, I think you are misinterpreting Pauls words in Colossians. "All things" is not referring to all created things. If Paul had wanted to say God created the world through Jesus, he could have said so. He did not. "All things" probably refers to all things in the Age to come... the Kingdom Age. Again, you are free to disagree, but don't think I have not investigated this verse to get to the position I now take. On it's face it seems to support Pre-existance, but if you dig deeper you find that is just an assumption from reading a text 2000 years after it was written and not understanding the nuances of the language it was written in.
Paul says all things were brought into being through him, that which is brought into being is created, of course Paul when Paul says all things he refers to all created things, the fact all things were created through and for Christ excludes him from all created things, considering also that the created cannot create, only the uncreated can. The verse says all things were brought into being through him, in the past tense not in the future tense, see for yourself:
Greek Concordance: ἐκτίσθη (ektisthē) -- 2 Occurrences
Where does the verse even mention the age to come or the Kingdom Age? I am quoting the language it was written in to you and quoting the wider context of his theme in scripture such as in the Gospel of John, what more do you want? If you admit that the verse if not read into teaches the pre-existence of Christ, then why are you still denying the pre-existence of Christ, I thought all your beliefs were based on the Bible and not human philosophy? And another thing if Christ created all of creation, then you have a problem because Isaiah 44:24 says the following:
Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself.
If the God Yahweh created the world by himself and Paul says all things have come into being through Christ, then who is Christ, but the True God Yahweh himself.
I think you are conflating the Jews (and Luke) who wrote the New Testaments with the gentile Greek philosophers who were the leaders of the church in the 100s-400s when the doctrine of the Trinity came into being. I certainly can divorce the thinking of pagan Greek philosophers from the writings of Jesus' disciples. As far as I am concerned, wolves entered the church shortly after Paul and the other disciples were martyred. Those wolves have been erecting a mountain of false teachings within the Church for hundreds of years. The Protestant reformation swept away some of those false teachings, but it was unwilling to sweep away others such as the Trinity, eternal torment in Hell, Christian war. If it's not explicitly taught in the Bible and it doesn't make sense, then I'm fine discarding it as a pagan tradition. But, you keep thinking how you want to think if it suits your world view.
Jews stopped being the majority of the Church while the Apostles were alive, most of the hierarchy of the Church during the lifetime of the Apostles were made up of Gentile believers in Christ. The majority of Paul’s disciples were Gentiles, the Apostolic Fathers who knew the Apostles face to face were Gentiles, if wolves entered the Church it would have had to have been before the Apostolic Fathers considering they all believed in the same things I believe in, Apostolic tradition and succession, the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, the real presence, the authority of the Church, and etc, but that would be impossible considering the Apostles were still alive before they came into play, so when exactly did wolves enter the Church? As after the Apostolic Fathers we just have a succession of Bishops up until we reach Nicaea and after that all teach the same things which you reject. Also if wolves entered the Church shortly after the deaths of the Apostles and hijacked it, then he must have lied when he said the gates of hell shall never prevail against you and that he will always be with the Apostles and all believers guarding them from error forever. The only thing the Protestant “Reformation” succeeded in doing was creating more confused people like you. I have already showed that the Trinity and deity of Christ is explicitly taught and shown within the Bible, if you can’t show when the Church was hijacked by “wolves,” then you really cannot divorce the Bible from the Apostolic tradition the produced it and the community that revolved around it, but then again it’s not like you believe in the Bible either, so it’s you who is the pagan heretic and not the great men that defended this belief in the True God from scripture and that which was handed down to them all the way back to the Apostles.