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Not true, John 1:3 expressly refutes this argument of yours. Which perhaps explains why, contrary to all manuscript evidence, you want us to believe it to be a forgery.
This is such a tired and worn out argument....There are many words not found in the bible but that does not mean they are not true or do not exist. You need to do a whole lot better than that.....
Jesus Christ died too. And he was also resurrected. Moses died, and he too, will be resurrected.
Moses was not made God by God. I don't know where you get this idea from, but it's not from Scripture.
Moses was chosen by God to lead the nation out of Egypt, he was faithful, committed to God and allowed to see his glory. He was just a man, however, in fact before he met with God, he was also a murderer.
Jesus was raised by God, thus proving that he was who he claimed he was, and ascended to heaven to sit at God's right hand, and has received the name that is above every name. Jesus is greater than Moses - and everyone else.
And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. (Exodus 7:1 [KJV])
I just quoted the scripture! Are you people really that blind that you cannot see that the scripture states it?
Moses probably did appear, to Pharaoh, to have divine power because he was performing miracles, and even greater miracles than his own court magicians were performing.
Scripture does not say, "then God said to Moses, I will make you divine',". It says that God would make Moses like a God to Pharaoh.
When Paul and Barnabas were in a city performing miracles, the people shouted " the gods have come to us," Acts 14:8. That doesn't mean that Paul and Barnabas suddenly turned into God, only that that's how they appeared to the people. Same with Moses, and as I said, Moses was prevented from going into the Promised land because he sinned - since when does God sin?
Will you please stop saying "you people" and telling us to read and learn, when it's clear that you have misunderstood a single Scripture and built a doctrine on it.
Jesus was not a Trinitarian.
In the book of John, Jesus calls himself "the son of man" many times. He also calls himself a man.
"As it is, you want to kill me, a man who has told you the truth as I have heard if from God." John 8:40
He does not claim to be God whom he calls "the one who alone is God," in John 5:44. "How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?" If God is "the only true God," as Jesus prayed, then Jesus cannot be that only true God or 'true God of true God,' as the creed formulated in the 4th century CE puts it.
From the gospel going forth from Jerusalem in the first century to the Nicene Council in the fifth century . . .almost 500 years later,
thousands of Christians lived and died that had never heard of the Trinity.
They were Christians without it. The greatest of the Nicene fathers, Athanasius admitted that the Trinitarian formula of Nicea "was going beyond anything said explicitly in the New Testament."
Not all of those at Nicene debating over the issue agreed with the doctrine.
Luke and Matthew declared in plain terms that the coming into existence, begetting, of the Son of God was by a miracle, some two thousand years ago, in the womb of the virgin Mary. There is no preexisting Son and no possibility of this doctrine in Luke.
He is an equal.
He is referred to as the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord, the comforter and the counsellor. In addition, in Acts 16, he is called the Spirit of Jesus.
What do you want people to say; the Father, the Son and George?
God is the only one who is worshipped and not created lords many. The Lord Jesus Christ who is worshipped has equality with the Father and if equality with the Father, then he is God almighty.
Hello friend I just wanted to highlight below what you stated in your post....
If we say hands, then we can also say works and if we say works, then we need to associate a person behind those works, right?
The question then arises to who the person is behind those works, right?
You say it is God behind those works, so we need to find from scripture who the personhood of God is, since our God is not the unknowable god of Islam or the god of the many false religions of the world, our God is a personal God which scripture declares is knowable by his sheep.....
So who is the person of God the Spirit, is he the Father? Is he the Son? Or is he the Spirit?
Well in scripture John quotes Jesus, who highlights this point by using human sense of sight and the discernment of knowing and to accepting a person on a personal level.....
Is the personhood of the Spirit of truth the Son, because the Son said he must leave before the Father can send the Spirit of truth, right? (John 16:7)
So the personhood of the Spirit is distinct from the Son, right there and then. Additionally if the personhood of the Father is sending the Spirit, after he had sent and recalled the personhood of the Son, then the personhood of the Spirit is distinct from the personhood of the Father who sent him and the personhood of the Son who needed to leave before the Father could send the personhood of the Spirit in the first place.
Can you see that there are in fact three distinct personhoods at play, who are the one God.
The church fathers who were very versed in scripture knew that there was in fact three distinct persons within the one infinite Godbeing. How this is, has not been revealed and we probably will never know.
Now to recap your statement that I drew upon, in relation to the PERSONAL works of God, requiring a knowable person to be behind those works, as you said the hands of God.
Who is this person behind those works?
Fortunately within the same context of the giving of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost in John chapter 14, we can establish whose works are being manifested in the believers.
So Jesus is going to the Father, who will send another..............
The Father will give you, by sending you ANOTHER Comforter. Another to whom, one might say?
Another person, in place of the personhood of the Son. Obviously if the Father is sending ANOTHER, it also means ANOTHER to the Father himself, who is the sender of the Comforter.
So when we put one and one and one together we get three persona's or there distinct persons who are at play and the Comforter is the person working in us. His name is the I Am, the same name of the Father and the Son, because all three are the one Godbeing Yahweh.
Nicea was in 325 AD, which is "almost" in the sense that at 6:35 PM it is almost 7:00.
So what is your position then? Do we have two Gods? Or do we have a God, and someone who's not a God but is somehow equal to God because God "promoted Him" to be?Look at the next two verses.
Philippians 2:9 "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
God doesn't exalt Himself, does He?
Jesus, the Messiah, was exalted to the supreme position assigned to him by God the Father. His equality with his Father does not make him God. He is still the Messiah. There is still One God but that One God, now has next to him one mediator, the man Messiah Jesus.
1 Timothy 2:5 "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony to which was borne at the proper time."
Look at the next two verses.
Philippians 2:9 "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
God doesn't exalt Himself, does He?
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
God doesn't exalt Himself, does He?
And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. (John 17:5)
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:11)
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. (John 1:8)
Isaiah 63:9-11
9In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the Angel of his (Yahweh's) presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.
10But they rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.
11Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is HE that put his Holy Spirit within him?
God doesn't exalt Himself, does He?
And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. (John 17:5)
Select Treatises of St Athanasius.
The Athanasian Creed wasn't used by churches until the sixth century. This was the first creed that explicitly stated the equality of the three persons of the Trinity.
if we have to explain this presenting it from the viewpoint that you state(d) here, it can be said Jesus Christ is (as it were) the Initiator, while the Holy Spirit is the direct interaction with the true God, or as He said: "At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God."(John 16:26-27)
so the Holy Spirit is another state of spirit i.e. the next stage of inspiration/enlightenment - this is the "other comforter"
Blessings
I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. (John 14:18)
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. (John 16:7)
Then Jesus told them, "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: "'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.' (Matthew 26:31)
Exactly, if NO-THING was ever created before the Living Word created THINGS, then THINGS were not there BEFORE and if THINGS were not there BEFORE, then the Living Word is not a THING.
Yet this is not offered to us in the Bible. This is what you imagine to exist.
All that is offered is that 'in the beginning'. Certainly you are not implying that God has a 'beginning'?
So we 'know' that 'things' existed before 'in the beginning'. That means that 'in the beginning' is a reference to those things that pertain to 'use': who the Bible was written to.
In essence, the words could be offered thus: "In the beginning of the things that pertain to man". For God has 'no beginning'. And we know that there were many 'things' before those 'things' that pertain to us. God wasn't floating in a void twiddling His fingers for eternity. Surely you offer no such concept.
So what you have offered is pretty much 'false understanding' so far as 'in the beginning' or 'things' that were created in that 'beginning'.
Christ refers to Himself as: "The beginning of the creation of God". Now how do you recommend we accept or deny these words?
If we accept them, then show us how Christ 'as God' was the 'beginning of the creation of God'. If you can't, then it's obvious that you don't really understand what you so often 'act' like you do.
I believe that the words couldn't have been offered more simply. They are so simple a child can understand them. "The beginning of the creation of God" simply implies that Christ was created FIRST in the beginning of the 'creation of God'.
And we have other scripture that backs up His claim: The 'firstborn' of every creature'. A plain and simple piece of understanding offering that before any other 'creature' was formed, Christ was formed first.
And then there is the word 'made'. As in:
Acts 2:36
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
Hmmm................. "God hath MADE Jesus both 'Lord' and "Christ". Wow. Pretty profound ain't it? God made Jesus both 'Lord' and "Christ". This plainly shows that Jesus Christ didn't 'make Himself' anything. It was accomplished by His Father: God.
Just like the place that He now sits: "At the right hand of God".
What your 'churches' have erred in teaching you is obvious to any that have actually read the Bible without such 'preconceived notions'.
If there is a 'Jesus' that is God, it is not the same God that the Hebrews/Jews followed and worshiped. For 'that God' is singular, uncompounded, without equal.
And God revealed Himself in such a manner to distinguish Himself from all the other 'multi part' Gods that the rest of the world was worshiping. Including the Greeks and Romans previous to their introduction to Christ.
The apostles never taught Jesus to be God.
And Jesus never revealed Himself to the apostles as God.
Jesus referred to God as His Father. To His Father as God. And He stated without confusion that the Father is greater than the Son. Even discussed that all He did was for the glory of His Father: God.
Once when called 'Good Master', he rebuked the man in offering that 'there is only one that is good and that is God'. So He wouldn't even allow men to call Him 'good' while dwelling in the flesh.
And when He offered 'how are we to pray', "Our Father who art in heaven.......................... thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.
And then there are the words that utterly destroy any possibility of 'trinity': "My God, my God, why hath thou forsaken me?" He is not praying to a 'third person of the trinity: the Father', He states clearly who He is praying to: God, who is His Father as well as ours.
And then Paul makes it perfectly clear in almost every letter he wrote:
It's kind of hard to understand how these words are so difficult for some to accept.
But I understand this: If one is insistent upon worshiping Christ 'as God', then it is imperative that one 'make' Christ God.
I do not worship Christ 'as God'. I worship 'only God as God'. But I am sure that the Son is worthy of our worship as well. But not as the Father, but as the Son. The Son is certainly worthy of our worship.
But what if? What if Christ is 'not God'? Then that would mean that the 'Christ' that is being worshiped 'as God' is a 'false Christ'. For we are to worship nothing as God but God Himself. And the only way that we are capable of worshiping the Son is 'as The Son'. If we worship anything as God that is not God, then we are worshiping a 'false God'.
Not my words. These are about as clearly outlined in the Bible as they could be. Yet so many find the means to ignore all that doesn't 'fit' what they 'want' to believe.
There is no indication that the Word referred to in John was anything but the Word of God until the Word became flesh. It was only then that the Word could be considered to be Christ. And even then He plainly states that the words He offered were 'not His own' but given Him by the Father. So in essence, calling Christ the Word is figurative. He is not nor has He ever been the "literal" Word of God. If so, show it. You can't. But I 'can' show that while Christ was living in the flesh on this world a voice from Heaven was heard. By numerous different people. And that voice 'was' the Word of God. Not figurative or symbolic, but the 'literal Word of God'.
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