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Hi WJ,
If you say Jesus was the Father in flesh what of the verse that says it was rather Jesus Christ who came in the flesh and to say otherwise is of antichrist?[1Jn4]Why did Jesus say he only did what he saw his father doing?
Quote (WorshippingJesus @ Oct. 17 2008,11:16) Hi t8 And yet you cannot find one example of a child of God in the NT ascribing “proskeneo” worship to any other but the Father and Yeshua?
Who is being worshipped here t8?
And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and [one] sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. ….And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, **Lord God Almighty**, which was, and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks “to him that sat on the throne”, who liveth for ever and ever, “The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne”, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Rev 4:2, 3 and 4:8-11
Compare “…for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure* they are and were created”. with…
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether [they be] thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: “all things were created *by him, and for him*”: Col 1:16
So again the contradictions pile up for you like a straw man.
WJ
A couple of things that need to be pointed out regarding your reply.1) proskuneo is used in a true sense in the following verse:
“Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship (proskuneo) before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.”As you can see that those who will receive proskuneo are not YHWH and it is legitimate proskuneo toward those who are faithful. This is enough to consider your proposal that only YHWH receives proskuneo as not being true. Case closed, unless you have some new evidence to backup your notion.
2) Your point about who is being worshipped is explained here:
Revelation 7:10
And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”So is Jesus both God and the Lamb above, or do you think that it is the Father and the son?
The other thing to consider is that God is an invisible spirit and we see his glory, but not his form. Therefore, Jesus being the greatest expression of God's glory is the visible image of the invisible God that is seen when looking at the throne. It is also written that Jesus sits with his Father on his throne, so it doesn't take much to see what is happening here. It is explained quite clearly in scripture. God is being worhipped and his glory is all around the throne with Yeshua in the center of that glory.
All glory to God AND to the lamb.
Christ is worshiped as the son and the lamb and he is the glory of God, the visible image of the invisible God. He is not both God and the Lamb who are being worshiped and honored. If he was both, then what of the Father?
Quote (WorshippingJesus @ Oct. 20 2008,04:46) Hi AP Quote
Thus also in John 1:1, “In the beginning God had a plan and that plan was within God’s heart “and was itself ‘God’ ” — that is, God in His self-revelation.
Taken from AP's link emphasis mine…here…Ok AP so the plan of God was God, so did the plan of God which was God “cease to be God” when it came in the flesh?
So then God was with himself?
If not then then Jesus is the Father in the flesh.
Truly amazing the inference and forcing of the text.
I think I would rather trust the translations and 100s of Greek scholars over a few apologist.
WJ
Hi WJ:God is a Spirit. (John 4:24)
Quote Jhn 4:24 God [is] a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in truth. The body is God's body. His own flesh and blood. The body is the Holy temple of God. The Father and the Son are two distinct souls.
Quote 2Cr 5:18 And all things [are] of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
2Cr 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.Quote Jhn 14:9 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], Shew us the Father?
Jhn 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 following is God's plan for humanity, and we see that it was with Him in the beginning:
Quote Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.Quote 1Cr 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit. Quote Hbr 1:1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
Hbr 1:2 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;
Hbr 1:3 Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on highGod's Word which is the Spirit of His Son was with Him in the beginning. He as a Father would teach His Son through His Word and His Son would obey Him. It is through the works that Jesus has done in obedience to God's Word that we have seen the Father, and so the Word is God manifest through the obedience of the Son even unto death on the cross.
God Bless
Quote (Nick Hassan @ Oct. 20 2008,13:21) Hi 94,
Were the works done by Jesus done in his own power or that of God's anointing?
Hi Nick:What do you think?
Quote (WorshippingJesus @ Oct. 18 2008,01:34) Quote (WorshippingJesus @ Oct. 17 2008,12:35) I think that translating John 1:1c as “a god” also would be unpopular to the Hebrews that believed there is only one “True God”. Quote (david @ Oct. 17 2008,16:39)
What if I said: “I believe there is only one true Captain of the enterprise–William Shatner.”You'd of course know and understand what I mean. There's been more than one captain. But saying this would mean for me, that no one else compares to Captain Kirk.
You get that don't you? I know you have to. It's how people talk.
(As a side note, I much prefer Picard.)
Hi David.
Quote (david @ Oct. 17 2008,16:39)
What if I said: “I believe there is only one true Captain of the enterprise–William Shatner.”Bad analogy.
Ok…
“One True Captain” = “One True God”
“The Enterprise” = “The Creation”
If you can show where their is more than “One Creation” or “Enterprise”, then maybe there is more than “One True God” or Captain of that enterprise.
You get that don't you David?
Remember David…
All things came into being through Him, and “apart from Him nothing came into being” that has come into being. John 1:3
I like the fact that there is only One Enterprise and One Captain.
WJ
WJ, you really don't have a clue what I'm talking about do you?Unquestionably, if i said to you: “William Shatner will always be the only true Captain of the enterprise” you would completely understand what I'm saying–
That he is viewed as the degree to which any other Captain (such as Picard) is held. This doesn't mean that Picard wasn't a captain, or that Picard was a false Captain does it? Rubbish.It's how people speak, even today. All I have proven here is that by saying there is only one “true” God, or one true man, or one true anything, does not necessite another god, man, etc as being a false man, or god. This is what I have proven.
Now, you can continue to avoid this simple fact and conclude that I meant Picard was a false Captain (which I know you didn't think I meant) or you can realize that this is another way the word “true” is often used.
Hi 94,
This is what you said
“God's Word which is the Spirit of His Son was with Him in the beginning.[proof?]He as a Father would teach His Son through His Word [what does this mean as you have defined word differently above]
and His Son would obey Him. [naturally or by the anointing of grace?]
It is through the works that Jesus has done in obedience to God's Word that we have seen the Father, and so the Word is God manifest through the obedience of the Son even unto death on the crossHi 94,
We do know that Jesus was very thoroughly versed in the scriptures being as a teacher by the age of 12. He must have loved them and devoted himself to rtheir study with his Father's help.Because of this he was able to be shown the heart of God in every situation and prompted and enabled by God's Spirit in power from the time of the Jordan to act as God would among the chosen people.
Quote (Nick Hassan @ Oct. 20 2008,13:36) Hi 94,
This is what you said
“God's Word which is the Spirit of His Son was with Him in the beginning.[proof?]He as a Father would teach His Son through His Word [what does this mean as you have defined word differently above]
and His Son would obey Him. [naturally or by the anointing of grace?]
It is through the works that Jesus has done in obedience to God's Word that we have seen the Father, and so the Word is God manifest through the obedience of the Son even unto death on the cross
Hi Nick:I didn't define this differently. What does it mean to you when I say that “God is love”. How do we know that God is love?
Hi Nick:
Quote Jhn 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
Jhn 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Jhn 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.Quote Jhn 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. The Words that he was speaking and obeying were coming from God His Father.
I don't know what further proof you need. Prove to me that what I have said is not true.
The word “anointed” means that he was consecrated as God's Christ. The Father indwelt him by His Spirit teaching him what to say and do.
Quote Jhn 17:8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received [them], and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. Quote Jhn 17:14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Quote Jhn 8:28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am [he], and [that] I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. I don't know what else you need as proof. If the Word of God is not proof enough, then I don't know what will safisfy you.
Quote (Nick Hassan @ Oct. 20 2008,14:37) Hi 94,
Just a clarification.
thank you
You are welcome Nick. I am just hoping by this that WJ will see. It really is not that difficult.God Bless
Hi 94,
So the words of scripture are of the Spirit of Christ and give life to dying men.
They can wash the heart and retrain the mind in righteousness.
Indeed Jesus is the living Word.Quote (Nick Hassan @ Oct. 20 2008,15:16) Hi 94,
So the words of scripture are of the Spirit of Christ and give life to dying men.
They can wash the heart and retrain the mind in righteousness.
Indeed Jesus is the living Word.
Hi Nick:Quote 1Jo 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; 1Jo 1:2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen [it], and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)
1Jo 1:3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship [is] with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
And also the following scripture:
Quote 1Jo 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, [even] in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. Hi brothers Nick and 942767,
You both are in good line with the scriptures. Our Father God indwelled Jesus the man by His Spirit there by this Jesus who became Christ did mighty works according to God's purpose. I agree with you both.Thanks and peace to you
AdamRegarding John 1:1, and it's translation of Jesus as “a god” or “God” based on the coptic manuscripts, see:
Quote (gollamudi @ Oct. 18 2008,22:18) Hi brothers and sisters in Heavennet,
Here are some thoughts for you on understanding Jn 1:1 in a Jewish point of view. Please go through with open mind.1. John and the Preexistent Purpose of God:
One day a theological storm is likely to erupt over the translation of John’s prologue in our standard versions. At present the public is offered a wide range of renderings, from the purely literal to the freely paraphrased. But do these translations represent John’s intention? Or are they traditional, based on what “everyone accepts”? Have they sometimes served as a weapon in the hands of Christian orthodoxy to enforce the decisions of post-biblical creeds and councils? The seeker after Truth of the Berean style (Acts 17:11) should investigate all things carefully.According to the findings of a recent monumental study of the origin of Christ in the Bible, Bible readers instinctively hear the text of John 1:1 as follows: “In the beginning was Jesus and Jesus was with God and Jesus was God,” or “In the beginning was the Son and the Son was with the Father…”[2]
This reading of the passage provides vital support for the traditional doctrine of the Godhead, shared equally by Father and Son from eternity. Paraphrased versions sometimes go far beyond the Greek original. The Contemporary English Version interprets John to mean that two beings were present at the beginning. “The Word was the One who was with God.” No doubt, according to that translation, the Word would be equivalent to an eternal Son. It would certainly be understood in that sense by those schooled on the post-biblical creeds.
But why, Kuschel asks, do readers leap from “word” to “Son”? The text simply reads, “In the beginning was the word,” not “In the beginning was the Son.” The substitution of “Son” for “word,” which for millions of readers appears to be an automatic reflex, has had dramatic consequences. It has exercised a powerful, even mesmerizing influence on Bible readers. But the text does not warrant the switch. Again, John wrote: “In the beginning was the word.” He did not say, “In the beginning was the Son of God.” There is, in fact, no direct mention of the Son of God until we come to verse 14, where “the word [not the Son] became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of a unique Son, full of grace and truth.” Until verse 14 there is no mention of a Son. The Son is what the word became, but what is the word?
Imagine I told my child, “Our car was once in the head of its designer, and now here it is in our garage.” The child might respond: “How could that car fit into the head of the designer? It would be too big.” Fair point, but based on a large misunderstanding. The application to our problem in John 1:1 is simply this: The fact that the word became the man Jesus, the Son of God, does not necessarily or automatically imply that Jesus, the Son of God is one-to-one equivalent to the word before Jesus’ birth. What if the word, the self-expression of God, became embodied in, was manifested in, the man Jesus? That makes very good sense of John 1:14. It also avoids the fearful, never-resolved complexities of Trinitarianism by which there are two or three who are fully and equally God. If our theory is right, John will have been speaking about a preexisting divine Purpose, not a second divine person.
It is commonly known to Bible readers that in Proverbs 8 wisdom was “with [Hebrew, etzel; LXX, para] God.” That is to say, God’s wisdom is personified. It is treated as if it were a person, not that Lady Wisdom was really a female personage alongside God. We accept this sort of language, usually without any confusion. We do not suppose that Prudence, who is said to be dwelling with Wisdom (Prov. 8:12), was herself literally a person. When the famous St. Louis Arch was finally completed after several years of construction a documentary film announced that “the plan had become flesh.” The plan, in other words, was now in physical form. But the arch is not one-to-one equivalent with the plans on the drawing board. The arch is made of concrete; the plans were drawn on paper.
2. The Misleading Capital on “Word”:
Here is a very remarkable and informative fact: If one had a copy of an English Bible in any of the eight English versions available prior to 1582, one would gain a very different sense from the opening verses of John: “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. All things came into being through it, and without it nothing was made that was made.”“All things came into being through it [the word],” not “through him.” And so those English versions did not rush to the conclusion, as does the King James Version of 1611 (influenced by the Roman Catholic Rheims version, 1582) and its followers, that the word was a person, the Son, before the birth of Jesus. If all things were made through “the word,” as an “it,” a quite different meaning emerges. The “word” would not be a second person existing alongside God the Father from eternity. The result: one of the main planks of traditional systems about members in the Godhead would be removed.
There is more to be said about that innocent sentence: “In the beginning was the word.” There is no justification in the original Greek for placing a capital “W” on “word,” and thus inviting readers to think of a person. That is an interpretation imposed on the text, added to what John wrote. But was that what he intended? The question is, what would John and his readers understand by “word”? Quite obviously there are echoes of Genesis 1:1ff here: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…and God said [using His word], ‘Let there be light.’ ” “God said” means “God uttered His word,” the medium of His creative activity, His powerful utterance. Psalm 33:6 had provided commentary on Genesis: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made.” And so in John 1:1 God expressed His intention, His word, His self-revealing, creative utterance. But absolutely nothing in the text, apart from the intrusive capital letter on “word” in our versions, turning word into a proper noun, would make us think that God was in company with another person or Son. The word which God spoke was in fact just “the word of God,” the expression of Himself. And one’s word is not another person, obviously.
3. The Meaning of “Word”:
Sensible Bible study would require that we attempt to understand what “word” would mean in the background of John’s thinking. Commentators have long recognized that John is thoroughly Hebrew in his approach to theology. He is steeped in the Hebrew Bible. “Word” had appeared some 1,450 times (plus the verb “to speak” 1,140 times) in the Hebrew Bible known so well to John and Jesus. The standard meaning of “word” is utterance, promise, command, etc. It never meant a personal being — never “the Son of God.” Never did it mean a spokesman. Rather, word generally signified the index of the mind — an expression, a word. There is a wide range of meanings for “word” according to a standard source. “Person,” however, is not among these meanings.The noun davar [word] occurs some 1455 times…In legal contexts it means dispute (Ex. 18:16, 19; 24:14), accusation, verdict, claim, transfer and provision…[otherwise] request, decree, conversation, report, text of a letter, lyrics of a song, promise, annals, event, commandment, plan (Gen. 41:37; II Sam. 17:14; II Chron. 10:4; Esther 2:2; Ps. 64:5, 6; Isa. 8:10), language…Dan. 9:25: decree of a king; [also:]
thing, matter or event. Of particular theological significance is the phrase “the word of the Lord/God came to…”…In Jud. 3:19-21 Ehud delivers a secret message (i.e. a sword to kill him)…Yahweh commands the universe into existence. Yahweh tells the truth so everyone can rely on Him. The word of the Lord has power because it is an extension of Yahweh’s knowledge, character and ability. Yahweh knows the course of human events. Similarly human words reflect human nature (“the mouth speaks from the abundance of the heart/mind”)…Words are used for good or evil purposes (Prov. 12:6)…Words can cheer, correct and calm.[3]We might add that “As a man thinks in his heart [and speaks] so is he” (Prov. 23:7). A person “is” his word. “In the beginning there was the word,” that is, the word of God. Clearly John did not say that the word was a spokesperson. Word had never meant that. Of course the word can become a spokesperson, and it did when God expressed Himself in a Son by bringing Jesus onto the scene of history. So then Hebrews 1:2 says: “God, after He had spoken long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, at the end of these days has spoken in a Son.” The implication is that God did not earlier speak through His unique Son, but later He did. There is an important chronological distinction between the time before the Son and the time after the Son. There was a time when the Son was not yet.
It would be a serious mistake of interpretation to discard the massively attested meaning of “word” in the Hebrew matrix from which John wrote and attach to it a meaning it never had — a “person,” second member of a divine Trinity. No lexicon of the Hebrew Bible ever listed davar (Hebrew for “word”) as a person, God, angel or man.
4. The Word “With God”:
John’s prologue continues: “And the word was with God.” So read our versions. And so the Greek might be rendered, if one has already decided, against all the evidence, that by “word” John meant a person, the Son of God, alive before his birth.Allowance must be made for Hebrew idiom. Without a feel for the Hebrew background, as so often in the New Testament, we are deprived of a vital key to understanding. We might ask of an English speaker, “When was your word last ‘with you’?” The plain fact is that in English, which is not the language of the Bible, a “word” is never “with” you. A person can be “with you,” certainly, but not a word.
But in the wisdom literature of the Bible a “word” certainly can be “with” a person. And the meaning is that a plan or purpose — a word — is kept in one’s heart ready for execution. For example Job says to God (10:13): “Yet these things you have concealed in your heart; I know that this is with you.” The NASV gives a more intelligible sense in English by reading, “ I know that this is within you.” The NIV reads “in your mind.” But the Hebrew literally reads “with you.” Again in Job 23:13, 14 it is said of God, “What his soul desires, that he does, for he performs what is appointed for me, and many such decrees are with him,” meaning, of course, that God’s plans are stored up in His mind. God’s word is His intention, held in His heart as plans to be carried out in the world He has created. Sometimes what God has “with Him” is the decree He has planned. With this we may compare similar thoughts: “This is the portion of a wicked man with God and the inheritance which tyrants receive from Him” (Job 27:13). “I will instruct you in the power of God; what is with the Almighty I will not conceal” (Job 27:11).
We should also consider the related concept of “Wisdom.” In Job we find this: “The deep says ‘It [Wisdom] is not in me.’ And the sea says, ‘It is not with me’ ” (Job 28:14). To have wisdom or word “with” one is to have them in one’s mind and heart. “With him is wisdom and strength. To him belong counsel and understanding” (Job 12:13). And of course Wisdom, that is Lady Wisdom, was with (Hebrew, etzel; LXX, para) God at the beginning (Prov. 8:22, 30).
In Genesis 40:14 we read “Keep me in mind when it goes well with you,” and the text reads literally “Remember me with yourself…” From all these examples it is clear that if something is “with” a person, it is lodged in the mind, often as a decreed purpose or plan. Paul remarked in Galatians 2:5 that the Gospel might continue “with [pros] them,” in their thinking. John in his Gospel elsewhere uses para, not pros to express the proximity of one person to another (John 1:39; 4:40; 8:38; 14:17, 23, 25; 19:25; cp. 14:23. Note also meta in John 3:22, 25ff, etc. See New Int. Dict. of NT Theology, Vol. 3, p. 1205).
Thus also in John 1:1, “In the beginning God had a plan and that plan was within God’s heart and was itself ‘God’ ” — that is, God in His self-revelation. The plan was the very expression of God’s will. It was a divine Plan, reflective of His inner being, close to the heart of God. John is fond of the word “is.” But it is not always an “is” of strict identity. Jesus “is” the resurrection (“I am the resurrection”). God “is” spirit. God “is” love and light (cp. “All flesh is grass”). In fact, God is not actually one-to-one identical with light and love, and Jesus is not literally the resurrection. “The word was God” means that the word was fully expressive of God’s mind. A person “is” his mind, metaphorically speaking. Jesus is the one who can bring about our resurrection. God communicates through His spirit (John 4:24). The word is the index of God’s intention and purpose. It was in His heart, expressive of His very being. As the Translators’ Translation senses the meaning, “the Word was with God and shared his nature,” “the Word was divine.”[4] The word, then, is the divine expression, the divine Plan, the very self of God revealed. The Greek phrase “theos een o logos”[5] (“the word was God”) can be rendered in different ways. The subject is “word” (logos) but the emphasis falls on what the word was: “God” (theos, with no definite article), which stands at the head of the sentence. “God” here is the predicate. It has a slightly adjectival sense which is very hard to put exactly into English. John can say that God is love or light. This is not an exact equivalence. God is full of light and love, characterized by light and love. The word is similarly a perfect expression of God and His mind. The word, we might say, is the mind and heart of God Himself. John therefore wrote: “In the beginning God expressed Himself.” Not “In the beginning God begat a Son.” That imposition of later creeds on the text has been responsible for all sorts of confusion and even mischief — when some actually killed others over the issue of the so-called “eternal Son.”
5. A Disturbance of Monotheism:
The great difficulty which faces those who say that there was a “God the Father” in heaven while “God the Son” was on earth is that this implies two Gods! There was, on that theory, a God who did not become the Son and a God who became the Son. This dissolves the unity of God. It undermines and compromises the first commandment: “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is One Lord ” (Mark 12:29). It also flies in the face of the great statement of Isaiah that God was unaccompanied as the Creator. “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: ‘I am the Lord, who made all things, who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread out the earth — Who was with me?’ ” (Isa. 44:24).Of course, if one has taken a first false step by assuming that the “word” in the beginning was “the Son,” then the phrase “the word was God” can only confirm the impression that there are two members of the Godhead, both of whom are somehow One God. However problematic and illogica
l this leap into a duality in God may be, Bible readers have been conditioned to make that leap painlessly. They have made that leap despite the impossibility of understanding John 1:1c to mean “and the Son was the Father.” No Trinitarian believes that, but to avoid it he must assign a different meaning to the word God in John 1:1c than he has given it in 1b, where he instinctively hears “and the Son was with God [= the Father].” But the whole idea of a duality of persons in John’s prologue contradicts Isaiah’s statement that no one was with the Lord in the beginning.[6] That fact in itself should have prevented translators from thinking that “word” was another person alongside the Lord God. Moreover, any introduction of a second divine being into John’s prologue is at the cost of contradicting what Jesus later said. Jesus elsewhere proves himself to be a staunch believer in the unitary monotheism (God is one person) of the great Jewish heritage. Addressing the Father, Jesus says unequivocally, “You, Father, are the only one who is truly God,” “the only true God,” “the one who alone is truly God” (John 17:3).J.A.T. Robinson writes, “John is as undeviating a witness as any in the New Testament to the fundamental tenet of Judaism, of unitary monotheism (cp. Rom. 3:30; James 2:19). There is one true and only God (John 5:44; 17:3). Everything else is idols (1 John 5:20)…Jesus refuses the claim to be God (John 10:33).”
6. Unitary Monotheism is Not Abandoned by John or Jesus:
We really do not need an army of experts to help us understand that simple sentence. Jesus refers again to the Father as “the one who alone is God” (John 5:44). These are echoes of the pure, strict monotheism of the Hebrew Bible and thus of the Jews for centuries. God remains in the New Testament “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3; 11:31; Eph. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:3; Rev. 1:6). Jesus had, and has, a God, and Jesus’ God is the Father, the one and only God of John 17:3. How exactly like the Old Testament: “Have we not all One Father? Has not one God created us?” (Mal. 2:5). “You are great. You alone are God” (Ps. 86:10). “You alone whose name is the Lord are the Most High over all the earth” (Ps. 83:18). How beautifully this harmonizes with Paul’s great creedal declaration: “For us Christians there is one God, the Father, and none other than he” (see 1 Cor. 8:4, 6). That too is an unambiguous statement about how many persons there are in the Godhead: only one.Thanks and peace to all
Adam
Adam…..Excellent post this is the right way to understand John 1:1. Looks like T8 got this posting mess straighten out now so i can post. Thank you and Mandylove you both…………gene
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