Logic

[GeneBalthrop]

Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 10 2008,19:16)

Hi E, Logic is a human measure. It does not understand or rule God.

Nick……..Logic is a mind process , a God given means to reason and if the mind of God be in you then so is GOD reasoning also. You have know way of Knowing anything without the power to reason.

peace brother………………gene

[NickHassan]

Quote (epistemaniac @ Dec. 07 2008,04:33)

Quote (Nick Hassan @ Nov. 26 2008,18:59) Hi E, Where do the anointed men of God teach in the bible about any trinity? None do. grammatically, this is very difficult to understand, and a very poorly contructed question….. are you asking if there are any “anointed men of God” who teach the Trinity? If so, thats easy, I could easily list hundreds pastors and theologians both of today and the past. Of course, the crux of the matter is that what you would consider an “anointed man of God”and what I would consider an “anointed man of God” are 2 very different people. For of course you would say that any one who teaches the trinity is not “anointed” and i would say that anyone who denies the Trinity is not “anointed”. blessings, ken

Hi e,
No I asked where God's anointed word teaches about any trinity through his proven servants.

Your intellectual 'divines' are no match for them.

Do they know more than Jesus too?

[GeneBalthrop]

Nick……..can't we do away with the insults for a while, you bridge from subject to personal attacks . Come on Nick,

love……………..gene

[NickHassan]

GB,
Did he not mean it?

[epistemaniac]

Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 10 2008,19:16)

Hi E, Logic is a human measure. It does not understand or rule God.

Here in this very short post I see you did not quote or allude to one single Scripture to prove your point. Therefore you are guilty of trying to add man's traditions and vain philosophies to the level of Scripture. You need to repent in sackcloth and ashes immediately.

Secondly, you are using logic to say that there is no logic. Since you are not referring to any of God's words in your post, but are rather simply stating Nick's words, what you are saying, according to your own thinking, is nothing but human measure, and therefore, you do not understand the rule of God.

[NickHassan]

Hi E,
People use scripture all day long to support their false doctrines.
It is very malleable.

[Not3in1]

Quote (Gene Balthrop @ Dec. 11 2008,13:41)

Nick……..can't we do away with the insults for a while, you bridge from subject to personal attacks . Come on Nick, love……………..gene

It takes a spoon to stir the soup.
It takes a little yeast to work through the dough.

One bad apple can spoil the lot.

Bro Gene,
I come here very rarely now, mainly because I've become weary of the tit-for-tat. It doesn't edify at all. You are right to work towards peace. Good luck.

Love,
Mandy

[Tiffany]

Quote (Not3in1 @ Dec. 12 2008,10:24)

Quote (Gene Balthrop @ Dec. 11 2008,13:41) Nick……..can't we do away with the insults for a while, you bridge from subject to personal attacks . Come on Nick, love……………..gene It takes a spoon to stir the soup. It takes a little yeast to work through the dough. One bad apple can spoil the lot. Bro Gene, I come here very rarely now, mainly because I've become weary of the tit-for-tat.  It doesn't edify at all.  You are right to work towards peace.  Good luck. Love, Mandy

I have missed you! We all make some mistakes and we should try to be patience with them that seem to give us trouble. Nick makes good points in some area's and bad in others. I am sure I am no different. I believe that God has patience with us, I certainly hope so. Otherwise no one could stand. All have fallen short of the glory of God.
I also believe that when one insults another it has to be noticed by that person in order to resolve that problem. God will do it for you, if you let Him.
With all my Love to you, Irene

[GeneBalthrop]

Mandy…….we all miss you and your great posts, please try to post more. I know I have learned here to be more tolerant of others and am learning more how to express my points without so much hostility's. There are some here i disagree with on some things but not all things. I probably disagree with Nick the most, but not in every thing though. But i have come to see most here are sincere though and i believe good people seeking more truth and understanding of God's word.

Love and peace to you and yours Sis,…………….Hope everyone is OK………… gene

[epistemaniac]

Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 11 2008,14:39)

Hi E, People use scripture all day long to support their false doctrines. It is very malleable.

N originally said

Quote

Logic is a human measure. It does not understand or rule God.

Nick you miss the point completely, or is it the case that the point was made, and rather than admit your error, which I cannot say I have ever seen you do, you just skirt the issue and try and change the subject, you raise another issue (red herring), and hope that with your little sleight of hand trick, no one notices….?

The fact is, logic is simply a tool, and a good tool, one given to us by God…. the fact that you (attempt) to be rational proves that you use it, the fact that you do not simply quote scripture and scripture ONLY all day long proves 1) that you (attempt to) be logical and 2) that if you can spout “Nick's wisdom” and it is not merely “human measure” then others can offer their thoughts and it is not mere “human measure” either and 3) that since you can make all sorts of statements which do not contain any scripture and yet you do understand God, then other people can do the same and still understand God. The fact is, you cannot utter one single coherent meaningful sentence without using logic. And what is fine for you, is fine for others as well. I know I know…. that would be consistent… that would be treating others the same way that you are treated, that would be applying the same standards for discussion to you as that which is applied to others… that would be fair… and I know that is really very difficult for you to accept, but that is just the way it is Nick… your being a moderator does not make the rules of conversation one standard for you and another standard for others… too bad… I know how hard that is for you to take… but that is the way it is….

Lastly, you continue your sleight of hand and red herrings by saying that I said logic rules God. Prove I ever said this Nick, rescind this statement, or be a liar, its your choice Nick. Prove it by quoting me that I have ever said in one single place that logic rules God. You can't. Therefore you are a liar. I am giving you an opportunity to redeem yourself here Nick. I ma giving you an opportunity to not be a bad witness and have you reflect poorly on Christ Jesus. Admit you were wrong, or be a liar, its just that simple.

Romans 2:19-24 (ESV) 19 and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— 21 you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. 24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

But then that is your modus operendi isn't it Nick? You can't stand being to be proven wrong. So rather than be a man and admit your error, you have to come up up with some some petty charge that you have made up, put words in other people's mouths, invent a figment of your imagination, try to steer the discussion in another direction in hopes that people won't see how wrong you are. You will stoop to just about any practice to make sure this happens. If you have to put words into someone else's mouth (lie), words that they have never written, so be it, so long as Nick isn't proven wrong. That's the really important thing isn't it Nick? Well I can say this for you, you are a prophet of sorts, for when you do this, it is truly a case of “human measure” and “proving that you do not “understand God”.

blessings,
ken

[epistemaniac]

Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 11 2008,14:39)

Hi E, People use scripture all day long to support their false doctrines. It is very malleable.

BTW, I might very well say that you are one of those people

[epistemaniac]

Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 11 2008,13:34)

Quote (epistemaniac @ Dec. 07 2008,04:33) Quote (Nick Hassan @ Nov. 26 2008,18:59) Hi E, Where do the anointed men of God teach in the bible about any trinity? None do. grammatically, this is very difficult to understand, and a very poorly contructed question….. are you asking if there are any “anointed men of God” who teach the Trinity? If so, thats easy, I could easily list hundreds pastors and theologians both of today and the past. Of course, the crux of the matter is that what you would consider an “anointed man of God”and what I would consider an “anointed man of God” are 2 very different people. For of course you would say that any one who teaches the trinity is not “anointed” and i would say that anyone who denies the Trinity is not “anointed”. blessings, ken Hi e, No I asked where God's anointed word teaches about any trinity through his proven servants. Your intellectual 'divines' are no match for them. Do they know more than Jesus too?

no… you originally asked

Quote

Where do the anointed men of God teach in the bible about any trinity?

being “anointed” does not necessarily imply that you were specifically referring to the inspired writers of Scripture. If that is what you meant you should have said so. If you cannot write and communicate clearly, then do not complain that others do not understand you or they did not answer you the way you wanted to be answered.

The New Testament writers—thoroughly “Trinitarian” in their theology—evidently saw no incongruity between their doctrine of God and the monotheism of the Old Testament. Accordingly, it is quite proper to suggest that the following phenomena are all to be viewed as adumbrations of the doctrine of the Trinity in the Old Testament:
1. the plural cohortative “Let us make” and the plural pronoun “our” in Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man in our image” (see also Gen. 3:22; 11:7; Isa. 6:8);8
2. those close juxtapositions of some title for God which differentiate God in one sense from God in another sense, as in
Psalm 45:6–7: “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever … You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore, God, your God, has set you above your companions” (see Heb. 1:8);
Psalm 110:1: “The Lord (יהוה, yhwh) says to my Lord (אֲדנִי, ˒aḏōni–): ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’ ” (see Matt. 22:41–45; also Num. 6:24; Isa. 33:22; Dan. 9:19);
3. the “angel of the Lord” who is both identified as God and yet differentiated from God (Gen. 16:7–13; 22:1–2, 11–18; 24:7, 40; 28:10–17 and 31:11–13; 32:9–12, 24–30; 48:15–16; Exod. 3:2–6; 13:21 and 14:19; 23:20–23 and 33:14; 32:34; Josh. 5:13–15; Judg. 6:11–24; 13:3–22; 2 Sam. 24:16; Hos. 12:4; Zech. 12:8; and Mal. 3:1).
4. those passages which depict God’s Word and Spirit as virtually co-causes with God of his work, as in
Genesis 1:2: “and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters”;
Psalm 33:6: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth” (see John 1:1–3; also Isa. 42:1; 43:9-12; Hag. 2:5–6);
5. those passages which tend to “personalize” God’s Word, as in
Psalm 107:20: “He sent forth his Word and healed them” (see also Gen. 1:3; Ps. 33:6; 147:15–18; Isa. 55:11);
and which tend to do the same with God’s Spirit, as in
Isaiah 63:10: “they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit” (see also Isa. 48:16; Ezek. 2:2; 8:3; Zech. 7:12);
6. those passages in which the Messiah as a divine Speaker refers to the Lord and/or the Spirit as having sent him, as in
Isaiah 48:16: “From the first announcement I have not spoken in secret; at the time it happens I am there. And now the sovereign Lord has sent me, with his Spirit”;
Isaiah 61:1: “The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor” (see Luke 4:16–18);
Zechariah 2:10–11: “ ‘Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,’ declares the Lord. ‘Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you’ ”;
7. those passages in which the prophet speaks of the Lord, the Angel of his presence, and his Holy Spirit as virtually distinct Persons, as in

Isaiah 63:9–10: “In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them”;
8. and finally, those passages in which a plural noun is employed to refer to God (these could be plurals of intensification, however, on the analogy of אֱלֹהִים, ˓elōhîm), such as
Psalm 149:2: “Let Israel rejoice in his Maker [בְּעֹשָׂיו, be˓ōsåayw; lit., “Makers”]; let the people of Zion be glad in their King”;
Ecclesiastes 12:1: “Remember your Creator [בּוֹרְאֶיךָ, bōre˒eykā; lit., “Creators”] in the days of your youth”;
Isaiah 54:5: “For your Maker [עֹשַׂיִךְ, ˓ōsåayik; lit., ‘Makers’] is your husband [בֹעֲלַיִךְ, ḇō˓alayik; lit., ‘husbands’]—the Lord Almighty is his name.”
On the other hand, when we turn to the pages of the New Testament we find the doctrine of the Triune character of God everywhere assumed (see Matt. 28:19; Mark 1:9–11; John 14:16–26; 15:26; 16:5–15; 1 Cor. 12:3–6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 1:3–14; 2:18; 4:4–6; Gal. 4:4–6; Rom. 8:1–11; 2 Thess. 2:13–14; Titus 3:4–6; 1 Pet. 1:2; Jude 20–21; Rev. 1:4)—not struggling to be born but already on the scene and fully assimilated into the thought forms of the Christian community. That is to say, in the New Testament the doctrine is not in the making through rigorous debate and theological reflection but already made (Warfield). How do we account for the fact that the Old Testament seems to have been written “before” its revelation while the New Testament seems to have been written “after” its revelation? To cite Warfield:
The revelation itself was made not in word but in deed. It was made in the incarnation of God the Son, and the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit. The relation of the two Testaments to this revelation is in the one case that of preparation for it, and in the other that of product of it. The revelation itself is embodied just in Christ and the Holy Spirit.9&#6
5279;
It has been often said, as the reason lying behind the determination of the divine wisdom to reveal the fact of the Trinity in this manner, that it was the task of the Old Testament “to fix firmly in the minds and hearts of the people of God the great fundamental truth of the unity of the Godhead; and it would have been dangerous to speak to them of the plurality within this unity until this task had been fully accomplished.”10 But, as Warfield argues, it is more likely that the full revelation of the Godhead’s personal manifoldness was necessarily tied to the unfolding of the redemptive process, and that as that process materialized the revelation of the Trinity necessarily was disclosed as its corollary:

the revelation of the Trinity was … the inevitable effect of the accomplishment of redemption. It was in the coming of the Son of God in the likeness of sinful flesh to offer Himself a sacrifice for sin; and in the coming of the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, that the Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead was once for all revealed to men. Those who knew God the Father, who loved them and gave His own Son to die for them; and the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved them and delivered Himself up an offering and sacrifice for them; and the Spirit of Grace, who loved them and dwelt within them, a power not themselves, making for righteousness, knew the Triune God and could not think or speak of God otherwise than as triune. The doctrine of the Trinity, in other words, is simply the modification wrought in the conception of the one only God by His complete revelation of Himself in the redemptive process. It necessarily waited, therefore, upon the completion of the redemptive process for its revelation, and its revelation, as necessarily, lay complete in the redemptive process.
The fundamental proof that God is a Trinity is supplied thus by the fundamental revelation of the Trinity in fact: that is to say, in the incarnation of God the Son and the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit. In a word, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are the fundamental proof of the doctrine of the Trinity. This is as much as to say that all the evidence of whatever kind, and from whatever source derived, that Jesus Christ is God manifested in the flesh, and that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, is just so much evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity; and that when we go to the New Testament for evidence of the Trinity we are to seek for it, not merely in the scattered allusions to the Trinity as such, numerous and instructive as they are, but primarily in the whole mass of evidence which the New Testament provides of the Deity of Christ and the Divine personality of the Holy Spirit.11
Louis Berkhof agrees:
The Old Testament does not contain a full revelation of the trinitarian existence of God, but does contain several indications of it. And this is exactly what might be expected. The Bible never deals with the doctrine of the Trinity as an abstract truth, but reveals the trinitarian life in its various relations as a living reality, to a certain extent in connection with the works of creation and providence, but particularly in relation to the work of redemption. Its most fundamental revelation is a revelation given in facts rather than in words. And this revelation increases in clarity in the measure in which the redemptive work of God is more clearly revealed, as in the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And the more the glorious reality of the Trinity stands out in the facts of history, the clearer the statements of the doctrine become. The fuller revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament is due to the fact that the Word became flesh, and that the Holy Spirit took up His abode in the Church.12
It was, in sum, the two great objective redemptive events of the Incarnation and Pentecost which precipitated and concretized the modification in the thinking of the first Christians about the one living and true God. Because they were convinced that men had been confronted by nothing less than the unabridged glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6) and that the Holy Spirit possessed a personal subsistence with the Father and the Son, the first Christians were given the impetus to formulate their understanding of God in Trinitarian terms.
The evidence for the Trinity, then, since the deity and personal subsistence of the Father may be viewed as a given,13 is just the biblical evidence for the deity of Jesus Christ and the distinct personal subsistence of God the Holy Spirit. Said another way, whatever biblical evidence, wherever expressed in Holy Scripture, which can be adduced in support of the deity of Christ and the personal subsistence of the Holy Spirit is evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity. Accordingly, the larger portion of the remainder of this chapter will be devoted to the adduction of the biblical evidence for the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit’s personal subsistence.

THE DEITY OF THE SON
The biblical evidence for the deity of the Son includes (1) the Old Testament adumbrations and predictions of a divine Messiah, (2) Jesus’ self-testimony in both words and deeds, (3) his resurrection, (4) the New Testament writers’ united witness, and (5) specifically, the nine New Testament passages in which “God” (θεός, theos) is used as a title for Christ.

Old Testament Predictions of a Divine Messiah
The Old Testament’s testimony to the deity of the promised Messiah is so pervasive that only a few of its highlights can be listed:14
1. A careful study of the references to the “angel of the Lord” will disclose that he is differentiated from God as his messenger by the very title itself as well as by the fact that God refers to him or addresses him (see Exod. 23:23; 32:34; 2 Sam. 24:16). And yet in his speeches the angel lays claim to divine prerogatives and powers, indeed to identity with God (see Gen. 31:11–13), thus establishing the pattern present in such Old Testament passages as Psalms 2:7, 45:6–7, and 110:1 and such New Testament passages as John 1:1, 18, Hebrews 1:8, and 1 John 5:20. Geerhardus Vos states that the only way to do justice to both features—the differentiation and the identity—is to
assume that back of the twofold representation there lies a real manifoldness in the inner life of the Deity. If the Angel sent were Himself partaker of the Godhead, then He could refer to God as His sender, and at the same time speak as God, and in both cases there would be reality back of it. Without this much of what we call the Trinity the transaction could not but have been unreal and illusory.
He notes further that the angel’s declarations of identity with God (which he terms God’s “sacramental” intent) underscores God’s desire to be present with his people in order to support them in their frailty and limitations; but without the angel’s differentiation from God (which he terms God’s “spiritual” intent), the real spiritual nature of the Deity would have been threatened. Hence, the angel speaks of God in the third person. From this analysis Vos concludes:
In the incarnation of our Lord we have the supreme expression of this fundamental arrangement.… The whole incarnation, with all that pertains to it, is one great sacrament of redemption. And yet even here special care is taken to impress believers with the absolute spirituality of Him Who has thus made Himself of our nature. The principle at stake has found classical expression in John 1:18: “No man has seen God at any time; God only begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”15
2. David, in Psalm 2:7, identifies the Messiah as God’s unique Son, a title in this context carrying implications of deity, according to the writer of Hebrews, for all the angels of God are ordered to worship Him (Heb. 1:5–6). Moreover, when the writer explicates the conte
nt of this “more excellent name,” he does so by ascriptions to Christ of the supreme titles of θεός, theos, and κύριος, kyrios—not new names additional to the title “Son,” but explications of the content of the more excellent “Son” title itself of Psalm 2.
3. In Psalm 45:6–7 the Messiah is called “God”: “Your throne, O God [אֱלֹֹהִים, ˒elōhîm], is forever and ever” (see Heb. 1:8).
4. In Psalm 102:25–27 the Messiah bears as his name the sacred Tetragram (יהוה, yhwh), possessing accordingly the attributes of creative power and eternality (see Heb. 1:10–12).
5. In Psalm 110:1 the Messiah bears the title of אֲדֹנִי (˒aḏōnî, “my Lord”), a title again carrying implications of deity since the One who bears this title sits on the right hand of Yahweh, a supra-angelic position (Heb. 1:13). Some angels are privileged to stand before God (Luke 1:19), but none are ever said to sit before him, much less sit upon his throne. The One who so sits with God must surely share in the divine reign as being himself divine.
6. In Isaiah 7:14 the virginally conceived Messiah is “God with us” (עִמָּנוּ אֵל, ˓immānû ˒ēl) (see Matt. 1:23).
7. In Isaiah 9:6 the Messiah is the bearer of the “four wonderful titles”: “Wonderful Counselor,” “the Mighty God” (אֵל גִּבּוֹר, ˒ēl gibbôr), the “Everlasting Father,” and “the Prince of Peace.”
8. In Daniel 7:14 the Messiah is the “manlike Figure,” manlike only to distinguish his kingdom in character from the four “beast” kingdoms preceding his, but himself divine as evidenced by (a) his free access to the Ancient of Days, (b) his “coming on clouds” (employed as a descriptive metaphor only of deity; see Nahum 1:3), Â the universal and everlasting kingdom which the Ancient of Days bestows upon him, and (d) the worship which the peoples and nations of the world offer him.
9. In Malachi 3:1 the Messiah, the Messenger of the Covenant, before whom his own messenger (“Elijah”) goes in order to prepare his way, is Yahweh of Hosts (see the “before me”).16
10. If we include John the Baptist among the Old Testament prophets as the “Elijah who was to come” (see Matt. 11:13–14), then we have John’s testimony to (a) the Messiah’s preexistence (John 1:15, 30),17 and (b) the Messiah’s divine Sonship (John 1:34). In regard to this latter testimony, Vos notes:

That [the title “Son of God”] cannot be lower in its import than the same title throughout the Gospel [of John] follows from the position it has as the culminating piece of this first stage of witnessing, when compared with the statement of the author of the Gospel (20:31). According to this statement the things recorded of Jesus were written to create belief in the divine sonship of the Saviour. With this in view a series of episodes and discourses had been put in order. Obviously the John-the-Baptist section forms the first in this series, and therein lies the reason, why it issues into the testimony about the Sonship under discussion. That it carried high meaning also appears from [John’s declaration in John 1:15, 30], in which nothing less than the preexistence of the Messiah had already been affirmed.18
Here then are several lines of Old Testament evidence for the coming of a Messiah who would be divine in nature. The stage was thus set for the appearance to his world of the virginally conceived divine Messiah who gave testimony concerning his deity in many unmistakable ways.

Jesus’ Self-Testimony to His Deity

THE TITLE “SON OF MAN”
A truly vast literature has grown up around the Son of Man title in the Gospels, and only a brief discussion can be given here.
The title itself (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ho huios tou anthrōpou, anarthrous only in John 5:27, but this anomaly is accounted for by Colwell’s rule)19 occurs sixty-nine times in the Synoptics, appearing in all four of the alleged earlier documentary sources (Ur-Markus, Q, M, and L), and thirteen times in the Fourth Gospel, for a total of eighty-two occurrences in the Gospels. The Son of Man sayings themselves depict the Son of Man figure in three distinct situations: that of his current ministry, that of his suffering at the hands of men (maltreated, betrayed, executed, and buried), and that of his rising and appearing in glory on the clouds of heaven. Who is this Son of Man, or are these situations so disparate that we must more accurately speak of more than one Son of Man?
Assuming the authenticity of these sayings as containing the ipsissima vox Jesu, the church has traditionally understood the phrase “Son of Man” as the title Jesus chose as a self-designation precisely because, although assuredly messianic (see Dan. 7:13), the title was ambiguous in meaning to the current popular imagination. This enabled him to claim to be the Messiah with little danger of the current erroneous views being read into it before he had the opportunity to infuse it with the full-orbed content of the messianic task which was foreshadowed in and predicted by the Old Testament.
Furthermore, according to the church’s traditional understanding, Jesus spelled out his messianic task as the Son of Man precisely in terms of the three situations of serving, suffering, and glory and applied these situations to himself, the former two being fulfilled in connection with his first Advent, the last to be fulfilled first in the “lesser (typical) coming in judgment” in the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70 (to which most probably Matt. 10:23; 24:27, 30 and perhaps others refer), and second in his grand and final apocalyptic revelation in eschatological glory.
That the church was correct when it understood the title as a self-designation of Jesus and when it applied these situations of the Son of Man to Jesus is evident from the following four lines of evidence:
1. Where Matthew (5:11) reads “on account of me,” Luke (6:22) reads “for the sake of the Son of Man”; where Matthew (10:32) has “I,” Luke (12:8) has “the Son of Man.” Where Mark (8:27) and Luke (9:18) have “I,” Matthew (16:13) reads “the Son of Man,” but where Mark (8:31 and 8:38) and Luke (9:22 and 9:26) have “the Son of Man,” Matthew (16:21 and 10:33) correspondingly reads “he” and “I.” Clearly the title, at least at times, was simply a periphrasis for “I” or “me,” demonstrating that Jesus intended himself as its referent. And always standing in the background was the eschatological figure of Daniel 7.
2. When Judas kissed Jesus, according to Luke 22:48 (see also Matt. 26:23-24, 45), Jesus asked: “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
3. As Royce G. Gruenler argues:
Matt. 19:28 is especially instructive on the matter of who the glorified Son of man is, for Jesus promises his disciples with the authoritative “Truly, I say to you” that “in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Surely Jesus, whom they have followed and in terms of whom they shall reign, will not be excluded from reigning with them. Are there then to be two enthroned central figures? The sense of the passage exegetically would imply that only one central person is assumed, namely, Jesus the Son of man.20
He argues further:
It is likely that non-supernaturalist assumptions lie behind the refusal to allow that these sayings [which portray the Son of Man as a glorified divine being] are Jesus’ own prophetic vision of his vin
dication and glorification in the coming judgment. Certainly there is no suggestion elsewhere in the Gospels that he anticipated any other figure to appear after him. In fact, among the Marcan sayings … 9:9 [Matt 17:9; see also Mark 8:31 (Luke 9:22; 24:7); 9:31 (Matt 17:22–23); Mark 10:33–34 (Matt 20:18–19; Luke 18:31–33)] clearly refers to his own rising as the Son of man from the dead, and 14:62, the scene before the high priest, couples his “I am” confession that he is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, with the surrogate for “I,” the Son of man, “sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”21
4. When Jesus asked the man born blind, whom he had just healed: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”22 the man asked “Who is he, Lord? Tell me, that I may believe in him.” Jesus replied: “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you” (John 9:35–37).
Thus it is clear that all four Evangelists intended their readers to understand that Jesus is the Son of Man in the roles both of suffering Servant “who came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), who also came “not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45; Matt. 20:28), and of coming Judge and eschatological King.
As for its background, both the evangelical and the growing critical consensus is that Daniel 7:13–14 is the primary source.23 A common objection that is raised against Daniel’s “manlike figure” being made the source of Jesus’ “Son of Man sayings” is the alleged absence of the motif of suffering in the description of this figure in Daniel 7 while the idea of suffering is often attached to the title in Jesus’ usage.This problem has been adequately answered by evangelical New Testament scholarship.24 When Jesus employed the title he was self-consciously claiming to be the Danielic Son of Man and hence the Messiah, uniting within the one Old Testament figure both the motif of suffering (the work of Isaiah’s suffering servant) and the motif of his apocalyptic coming to judge the earth and to bring the Kingdom of God to its consummation.
Commenting upon the significance of the “Son of Man” title, Geerhardus Vos writes:
In close adherence to the spirit of the scene in Daniel from which it was taken, it suggested a Messianic career in which, all of a sudden, without human interference or military conflict, through an immediate act of God, the highest dignity and power are conferred. The kingship here portrayed is not only supernatural; it is “transcendental.”25
Even a cursory examination of Jesus’ Son of Man sayings will bear out all that Vos asserts here and more. For example, this title in the Fourth Gospel “connotes the heavenly, superhuman side of Jesus’ mysterious existence,”26 expressing what is commonly called his preexistence (John 3:13; 6:62). As the Son of Man, Jesus in the Synoptics claimed to have the authority to forgive sins (Matt. 9:6; Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24) and to regulate even the observance of the divine ordinance of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5)—clearly prerogatives of deity alone. To speak against the Son of Man, he said, although forgivable, is blasphemy (Matt. 12:32). As the Son of Man the angels are his (Matt. 13:41), implying thereby his own superangelic status and lordship over them. As the Son of Man he would know a period of humiliation, having no place to lay his head (Matt. 8:20; Luke 9:58) and finally even dying the cruel death of crucifixion; but he, the Son of Man, would suffer and die, he declared, only to the end that he might ransom others (Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45). A man’s eternal destiny would turn on his relationship to the Son of Man, he taught, for unless the Son of Man gives a man life, there is no life in him (John 6:53). As the Son of Man, he would rise from the dead and “sit at the right hand of power,” and “come in clouds with great power and glory” (Matt. 24:30; Mark 13:25; Luke 21:27)—coming with all his holy angels in the glory of his Father, true enough (Matt. 16:27; Mark 8:38), but coming in his own glory as well (Matt. 25:31). And when he comes, he declared, he would come with the authority to execute judgment upon all men precisely because (ὅτι, hoti) he is the Son of Man (John 5:27). Clearly the Son of Man sayings embodied Jesus’ conception of Messiahship; and its associations were supernatural, even divine, in character. Warfield does not overstate the matter then when he writes:

It is … in the picture which Jesus Himself draws for us of the “Son of Man” that we see His superhuman nature portrayed. For the figure thus brought before us is distinctly a superhuman one; one which is not only in the future to be seen sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven … ; but which in the present world itself exercises functions which are truly divine,—for who is Lord of the Sabbath but the God who instituted it in commemoration of His own rest (2:28), and who can forgive sins but God only (2:10, see verse 7)? The assignment to the Son of Man of the function of Judge of the world and the ascription to Him of the right to forgive sins are, in each case, but another way of saying that He is a divine person; for these are divine acts.27

THE TITLE “SON (OF GOD)” ”
Jesus claimed, as the Son of God, essential divine oneness with God in the Synoptic Gospels in Matthew 11:27 (Luke 10:22); 21:37–38 (Mark 12:6; Luke 20:13); 24:36 (Mark 13:32); and 28:19; and in the Gospel of John in (at least) 5:17–29; 6:40; 10:36; 11:4; 14:13; 17:1. To these must be added those instances in the Fourth Gospel when he claimed that God was his Father in such a unique sense that the Jewish religious leadership correctly perceived that he was claiming a Sonship with God that constituted essential divine oneness and equality with God and thus, from their perspective, was the committing of blasphemy (John 5:17–18; 10:24–39, especially verses 25, 29, 30, 32–33; 37, 38; see also 19:7).
The Four Great Parallels
In Matthew 11:25–27 (Luke 10:21–22), judged by Vos to be “the culminating point of our Lord’s self-disclosure in the Synoptics,”28 Jesus draws four parallels between God as “the Father” and himself as “the Son” of 1 Chronicles 17:13; Psalm 2:7; Isaiah 9:6, and Matthew 3:17 (Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22). The unique and intimate nature of the Father-Son relationship asserted here by Jesus finds its expression in terms of these parallels.
The first parallel has to do with the exclusive, mutual knowledge that the Father and the Son have of each other. Jesus declares in Matthew 11:27: “No one knows [ἐπιγινώσκει, epiginōskei] the Son except the Father, and no one knows [ἐπιγινώσκει, epiginōskei] the Father except the Son.” Jesus puts emphasis upon the exclusiveness of this mutual knowledge (“no one knows except”). But just as striking is the inference that the nature of this knowledge which Jesus claims to have lifts him above the sphere of the ordinary mortal and places him “in a position, not of equality merely, but of absolute reciprosity and interpenetration of knowledge with the Father.”29 Vos observes:
That essential rather than acquired knowledge is meant follows … from the correlation of the two clauses: the knowledge God has of Jesus cannot be acquired knowledge [it must, from the fact that it is God’s knowledge, be direct, intuitive, and immediate—in a word, divine—author]; consequently the knowledge Jesus has of God cannot be acquired knowledge either, [it must be direct, intuitive, and immediate—author] for these two are placed entirely on a line. In other words, if the one is different from human knowledge, then the other must be so likewise.30&#6
5279;
The only conclusion to be drawn is that God has this exclusive and interpenetrating knowledge of the Son because he is the Father of the Son, and that Jesus has this exclusive and interpenetrating knowledge of God because he is the Son of the Father. And inasmuch as the knowledge Jesus here claims for himself could not possibly have resulted from the investiture of the messianic task but must have originated in a Sonship which, of necessity, would have been antecedent to his messianic investiture, it is plain that Jesus’ Sonship and the messianic task with which he had been invested are not descriptive of identical relationships to the Father—the former must have logically preceded the latter and provided the ground for it.
The second parallel, which rests upon the first, involves Jesus’ assertion of the mutual necessity of the Father and the Son to reveal each other if men are ever to have a saving knowledge of them. This parallel may be seen in Jesus’ thanksgiving to the Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that he—the Father—had hidden (ἔκρυψας, ekrupsas) the mysteries of the kingdom which are centered in the Son (for it was he whom that generation [11:19] and the cities of Korazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum [11:20–24] were rejecting) from the “wise” (that is, spiritual “know-it-alls”) and had revealed (ἀπεκάλυψας, apekalypsas) them to “babies” (that is, to men like Peter; see Matt. 16:17) (11:25), and his later statement that “no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son wills to reveal [ἀποκαλύψαι, apokalypsai] him” (11:27). The reason that the messianic task was invested in the Son becomes even plainer from this parallel: not only does the Son alone know the Father with sufficient depth (that is, to infinity) to give a faithful revelation of him, but also, and precisely because he alone has such knowledge, the Son alone can be the revelatory channel of salvific blessing to the Father (John 14:6). Therefore, the Messianic investiture had to repose in him.
The third parallel is evident in the mutual absolute lordship each is said to possess, the Father’s expressed in the words, “Lord of heaven and earth,” the Son’s in his declaration: “All authority is given to me.”
The fourth parallel is that of the mutual absolute sovereignty each exercises in dispensing his revelation of the other. The Father’s sovereignty is displayed in Jesus’ words: “for this was your good pleasure” (εὐδοκία, eudokia) (11:26), the Son’s in his words: “to whomever the Son wills to reveal” (βούληται ἀποκαλύψαι, boulētai apokalypsai) (11:27).
A higher expression of parity between the Father and the Son with respect to the possession of the divine attributes of omniscience and sovereignty in the dispensing of saving revelation is inconceivable. Warfield writes concerning this “in some respects the most remarkable [utterance] in the whole compass of the four Gospels”:
in it our Lord asserts for Himself a relation of practical equality with the Father, here described in most elevated terms as the “Lord of heaven and earth” (v. 25). As the Father only can know the Son, so the Son only can know the Father: and others may know the Father only as He is revealed by the Son. That is, not merely is the Son the exclusive revealer of God, but the mutual knowledge of Father and Son is put on what seems very much a par. The Son can be known only by the Father in all that He is, as if His being were infinite and as such inscrutable to the finite intelligence; and His knowledge alone—again as if He were infinite in His attributes—is competent to compass the depths of the Father’s infinite being. He who holds this relation to the Father cannot conceivably be a creature.31
Such a parity with the Father is the basis upon which our Lord grounds his invitation to the weary that follows this utterance—an invitation to come not to the Father but to himself as the Revealer of the Father—an unholy usurpation of divine place and privilege if he were not himself deity. And it is not without significance that his invitation, in its all-encompassing comprehensiveness (“all you who are weary and burdened”) and the absolute certainty of its unqualified promise of blessing (“I will give you rest”), parallels in form the divine invitation in Isaiah 45:22, as is plain if one only places the two invitations in their several parts beside each other as follows:

Isaiah 45:22: “Turn to me, all the ends of the earth, and be saved [that is, I will save you].”
Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Clearly, by his promise to succor all who come to him, Jesus was asserting for himself a place of power and privilege as the Son of the Father altogether on the level of deity.
The Parable of the Wicked Farmers
In the parable of the wicked farmers recorded in Matthew 21:33–39 (Mark 12:1–11; Luke 20:9–15), Jesus tells the story of a landowner who leased his vineyard to some farmers. When the time arrived for him to receive his rental fee in the form of the fruit of the vineyard, he sent servant after servant to his tenants, only to have each one of them beaten, stoned, or killed. Finally, he sent his son (Luke: his “beloved son”; Mark: “yet one [other], a beloved son” which evokes the earlier words of the Father from heaven [1:11; 9:7]), saying: “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw him, they said: “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and take his inheritance.” This they did, throwing his body out of the vineyard. When the landowner came, he destroyed the tenants and leased his vineyard to others.
The intended referents of the parable are obvious: the landowner is God, the vineyard the nation of Israel (Isa. 5:7); the farmers the nation’s leaders, the servants the prophets of the theocracy (Matt. 23:37a); and the son is Jesus himself, the Son of God. The central teaching of the parable is also obvious, just as it was to its original audience (Matt. 21:45): God, the true Owner of Israel, after having sent his prophets repeatedly to the nation and its leaders to call it back to him from its rebellion and unbelief, only to have them rebuffed and often killed, had in Jesus moved beyond sending mere servants. In Jesus God had finally sent his beloved (that is, his “one and only”) Son who was to be similarly rejected. But his rejection, unlike the rejections of those before him, was to entail, not a mere change of politico-religious administration, but “the complete overthrow of the theocracy, and the rearing from the foundation up of a new structure in which the Son [the elevated Cornerstone] would receive full vindication and supreme honor.”32 The parable’s high Christology—reflecting Jesus’ self-understanding—finds expression in the details of the story, as Vos explains:33
1. By virtue of his Sonship, Jesus possesses “a higher dignity and a closer relation to God than the highest and closest official status known in the Old Testament theocracy.” This is apparent from the highly suggestive “beloved” attached to the title “Son,” not to mention the title “Son” itself over against the word “servant.”
2. The Son’s exalted status in the salvific economy of God is apparent from the finality of the messianic investiture which he owns. From the word ὕστερον (hysteron, “finally”) (see Mark’s “He had yet one other” and his ἔσχατον [eschaton, “finally”]; also Luke: “What shall I do?”), it is clear that Jesus represents himself as the last, the final ambassador, after whose sending nothing more can be done. “The Lord of the vineyard ha
s no further resources; the Son is the highest messenger of God conceivable” (see Heb. 1:1–2).34
3. The former two points cannot be made to answer merely to a functional “messianic sonship,” as some theologians claim. This is apparent from the two facts that Jesus represents himself as the Son before his mission and that he is the “beloved Son” whether he be sent or not! “His being sent describes … His Messiahship, but this Messiahship was brought about precisely by the necessity for sending one who was the highest and dearest that the lord of the vineyard could delegate.… The sonship, therefore, existed antecedently to the Messianic mission.”35 And because he was, as the Son, the “heir” (in all three Synoptics; see also Psa. 2:8; Heb. 1:2, where the Son is the Heir of all things prior to his creating the world), his Sonship is the underlying ground of his messiahship.
There is a strong suggestion here of Jesus’ preexistence with the Father as the latter’s “beloved Son.” And his divine station in association with his Father prior to his messianic commitment in history is confirmed. The “Son” in this parable of Jesus, a self-portrait one may say with ample justification, is clearly divine.
The Ignorant Son
Already in his 1901 article, entitled “Gospels,” appearing in Encyclopaedia Biblica, Paul Wilhelm Schmiedel had included Mark 13:32 among his infamous nine “foundation-pillars for a truly scientific life of Jesus,” meaning by this entitlement that they “prove that in the person of Jesus we have to do with a completely human being,” and that “the divine is to be sought in him only in the form in which it is capable of being found in a man.”36 For Schmiedel, these nine passages (Mark 3:21; 6:5; 8:12, 14–21; 10:17; 13:32; 15:34; Matt. 11:5; 12:31) could serve as a base for “a truly scientific life of Jesus” because each in its own way affirms of him something which would be appropriate to a human Jesus but which would be impossible for a divine Jesus. The reason for his inclusion of Mark 13:32 among these nine is Jesus’ admission of his ignorance of the day and hour of his return in glory. But does this passage show that Christ could not have been divine?
It would be facile to assume, as did Schmiedel, that the passage places the Son entirely within the category of the merely human. This fails to take into account Jesus’ clear claim in Matthew 11:27 to a knowledge all-encompassing in character—equal to that of the Father himself.37 But it is equally facile simply to declare, as does the Roman Catholic decree, Circa quasdam propositiones de scientia animae Christi (1918), that Christ does not mean here that as man he did not know the day of judgment, that the idea of any limitation to the knowledge of Christ cannot possibly be taught in view of the hypostatic union of the two natures. Clearly it is dogmatic bias that is governing Roman Catholic exegesis here. How then is one who is really interested in “hearing” the text to understand this passage?
That Jesus speaks here as one with a divine self-consciousness is apparent for three reasons: first, this is the connotation of the simple “the Son” when it is associated as it is here with “the Father,” as we have already had occasion to observe in Matthew 11:27 and will observe when we treat Matthew 28:19; second, it is of his coming as the Son of Man in glory that Jesus speaks in this passage (and in 25:31), which Danielic figure is supernatural, even divine in character; and third, coming as the phrase “not even the Son” does after his reference to angels, Jesus places himself, on an ascending scale of ranking, above the angels of heaven, the highest of all created beings, who are significantly marked here as supramundane (see Matthew’s “of heaven,” Mark’s “in heaven”). Clearly, he classifies himself with the Father rather than with the angelic class, inasmuch as elsewhere he represents himself as the Lord of the angels, whose commands they obey (Matt. 13:41, 49; 24:31; 25:31; see Heb. 1:4–14). And if this be so, and if for these two Synoptists, Jesus is not merely superhuman but superangelic, “the question at once obtrudes itself whether a superangelic person is not by that very fact removed from the category of creatures.”38
But if Jesus is speaking here out of a divine self-consciousness, as we believe we have just demonstrated is the case, how can he say of himself that he is ignorant of the day and hour of his coming in glory? In response, I would submit that Jesus’ language reflects a theological construction concerning himself which is also quite common in the language of the New Testament writers when they speak about him. The theological construction to which I refer is this: because of the union of the divine and human natures in the one divine person, Christ designates himself here and is occasionally designated by others elsewhere in Scripture in terms of what he is by virtue of one nature when what is then predicated of him, so designated, is true of him by virtue of his other nature. As the Westminster Confession of Faith says:
Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet, by reason of the unity of the person that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature. (VIII/vii)
This means that, regardless of the designation which Scripture might employ to refer to him, it is always the person of the Son and not one of his natures who is the subject of the statement. To illustrate: when what is predicated of Christ is true of him by virtue of all that belongs to his person as essentially divine and assumptively human, for example, “that he might become a … high priest” (Heb. 2:17), it is the person of Christ, as both divine and human, and not one of his natures, who is the subject. Again, when what is predicated of Christ, designated in terms of what he is as human, is true of him by virtue of his divine nature, for example, he is “the man [ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos] from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47–49) and “a man [ἀνήρ, anēr] who … was before [John]” (John 1:30), it is still his person and not his human nature who is the subject. Finally, when what is predicated of Christ, designated in terms of what he is as divine, is true of him by virtue of his human nature, for example, Elizabeth’s reference to Mary as the “mother of my Lord” and Paul’s “they crucified the Lord of Glory” (1 Cor. 2:8), again it is his person and not his divine nature that is the subject.
So in Mark 13:32 we find Christ designating himself in terms of what he is as divine (“the Son” of “the Father”), but then what he predicates of himself, namely, ignorance as to the day and hour of his return in heavenly splendor, is true of him in terms of what he is as human, not in terms of what he is as divine. As the Godman, he is simultaneously omniscient as God (in company with the other persons of the Godhead) and ignorant of some things as man (in company with the other persons of the human race). So what we have in Mark 13:32, contrary to Schmiedel’s “pillar for a truly scientific life of Jesus” as a mere man, is as striking a witness by our Lord himself as can be found anywhere in Scripture (1) both to his supremacy as God’s Son over the angels—the highest of created personal entities (2) and at the same time to his creaturely limitations as a man, (3) as well as to the union of both complexes of attributes—the divine and the human—in the one personal subject of Jesus Christ. I conclude that in this saying which brings before us “the ignorant Son,” Jesus, as “the Son,” places himself outside of and above the category even of angels, that is, outside of and above creatures of the highest order, and associates himself as the divine Son with the Father
, while testifying at the same time to his full, unabridged humanity.
The “Son” of the Triune Name
Sometime between his resurrection and his ascension, our Lord gathered with his eleven disciples and commissioned them to “go and make disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28:19).
As a prelude to the Great Commission itself, our Lord declared that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him, words reminiscent of Daniel 7:13–14, claiming thereby an all-encompassing, unrestricted sovereignty over the entire universe. In his postlude to it, he declared he would be with his church (“I am with you”), words reminiscent of the Immanuel title of Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23, implying that the attributes of omnipresence and omniscience were his. In the additional words (“always, even to the end of the age”), he implied his possession of the attribute of eternality. Between the prelude and the postlude—both pregnant with suggestions of deity—comes the Commission itself (Matt. 28:19–20a). In its words, “all nations … teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you,” his universal lordship is affirmed. Sovereignty, omnipresence, omniscience, eternality, and universal lordship—all demonstrating that the risen Christ claimed to be divine.
Particularly interesting is the precise form of the baptismal formula. Jesus does not say, “into the names [plural] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” or what is its virtual equivalent, “into the name of the Father, and into the name of the Son, and into the name of the Holy Spirit,” “as if,” to quote Warfield, “we had to deal with three separate Beings.”39 Nor does he say, “into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (omitting the three recurring articles), again citing Warfield, “as if ‘the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost’ might be taken as merely three designations of a single person.” What he does say is this: “into the name [singular] of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” first “[asserting] the unity of the three by combining them all within the bounds of the single Name, and then [throwing up] into emphasis the distinctness of each by introducing them in turn with the repeated article.”40
To comprehend fully the import of Jesus’ statement, one must appreciate the significance of the term “the Name” for the Hebrew mind. In the Old Testament, the term does more than serve as the mere external designation of the person. Rather, it refers to the essence of the person himself. Warfield writes, “In His name the Being of God finds expression; and the Name of God—‘this glorious and fearful name, Jehovah thy God’ (Deut. xxviii. 58)—was accordingly a most sacred thing, being indeed virtually equivalent to God Himself” (see Isa. 30:27; 59:19). “So pregnant was the implication of the Name, that it was possible for the term to stand absolutely … as the sufficient representation of the majesty of Jehovah” (see Lev. 24:11). Warfield concludes:
When, therefore, our Lord commanded His disciples to baptize those whom they brought to His obedience “into the name of …” He was using language charged to them with high meaning. He could not have been understood otherwise than as substituting for the Name of Jehovah this other Name “of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” and this could not possibly have meant to His disciples anything else than that Jehovah was now to be known to them by the new Name, of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The only alternative would have been that, for the community which He was founding, Jesus was supplanting Jehovah by a new God; and this alternative is no less than monstrous. There is no alternative, therefore, to understanding Jesus here to be giving for His community a new Name to Jehovah and that new Name to be the threefold Name of “the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”41
What are the implications for his person of a saying that places Jesus as “the Son,” along with the Father and the Holy Spirit and equally with them, “even in the awful precincts of the Divine Name itself”?42 The answer is obvious: Jesus is affirming here his own unqualified, unabridged deity! And that this is his intent may be seen still further from an analysis of that portion of the saying that precedes the mention of “the Son,” namely, the phrase “the name of the Father.” Clearly, in this abbreviated expression, the phrase “the name” must carry the highest connotation, even that of deity itself, inasmuch as it is the Father’s name and thus the Father’s nature which is so designated. But it is precisely this same “name” which also governs the genitives “of the Son” and “of the Holy Spirit,” and to which the Son (along with the Holy Spirit) stands related, evincing his equality with the Father insofar as his deity is concerned.
Thus the significance of the title, “the Son,” for the Synoptic Evangelists is consistent and pervasive: as “the Son” of “the Father” Jesus Christ is deity incarnate. And when we press our investigation of the meaning of Jesus’ “Son [of God]” sayings into the Fourth Gospel, we find no new doctrinal content in them respecting his person but rather only a more pervasive testimony to the same doctrine of Jesus’ divine Sonship which we find in the Synoptic Gospels.
While it is true that the Synoptic Gospels only infrequently report Jesus’ use of “the Son” as a self-designation, preferring to preserve for the church the memory that Jesus favored the title “Son of Man” as his public self-designation (which fact, of course, John does not ignore, as for example, in 1:51; 3:13; 5:27; 6:62; and 9:35, and which, as we have seen, connotes through its association with the Danielic “Son of Man” a divine Messiah), John informs us that our Lord employed with great frequency and as a self-designation the title “the Son” in direct association with “the Father.” Jesus also uses “the Father” by itself some seventy additional times and “my Father” by itself almost thirty more times.
The Divine Son
That the title “the Son of God” is, for John, messianic is borne out from its appearance in his Gospel alongside the clearly messianic titles of “the King of Israel,” “the Christ,” and “he who was to come into the world” (1:49; 11:27; 20:31). But that it connotes more than the messianic office per se is also apparent in several of Jesus’ discourses recorded in John. In John 5:17–29, after healing the lame man on the Sabbath day, Jesus justified his act before the offended religious hierarchy by claiming both the ability and the prerogatives of “seeing” and “doing” as “the Father” does: “My Father is working still, and I am working” (5:17); “The Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing” (5:20); therefore, he said: “The Son does … what he sees the Father doing” (5:19a). Indeed, “Whatever he [the Father] does, that the Son does likewise [ὁμοίως, homoiōs]” (5:19b). Furthermore, as “the Son,” Jesus claimed to have the “Father-granted” sovereign right to give life: “The Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it” (5:21b). There are no limitations here: both spiritual and physical life is intended; for as spiritually dead men hear the voice of “the Son of God,” they “live” (5:24–25; see also 6:40a), and as physically dead men someday hear his voice, they will come forth from their graves (5:28–29; see also 6:40b). And when they do the latter, he declared, they do so only to stand before him in the Judgment because the Father has committed all judgment to him (5:22–27). These are clearly activities within the province and powers of deity alone; Jesus claimed, as “the Son,” to be coordinate with “the Father,” the Sovereign of life, of salvation, of the resurrection, and of the final judgment. But perhaps his most em
phatic claim to equality with the Father comes in 5:23 when he makes one’s honoring of “the Father” turn on the issue of whether one honors “the Son,” that is, himself. With these words Jesus laid claim to the right to demand, equally with the Father, the honor (that is, the devotion and worship) of men!43 Is it any wonder, given the assumption of the religious leaders that he was only a man, that they thought him, under Jewish law (Lev. 24:16), to be worthy of death: by the unique relationship he was claiming with the Father, he was making himself “equal [ἴσον, ison] with God” (5:18).
In view of Jesus’ express statements that “the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing” (5:19), and “by myself I can do nothing” (5:30), and his later declaration that “the Father is greater than I” (14:28; see also 1 Cor. 15:28), Unitarians have concluded that the charge that he was making himself “equal with God” was unfounded and one which Jesus himself expressly disavowed. It is true that in making these statements, our Lord was asserting in some sense a subordination to the Father. But in what sense—in an essential, covenantal, or functional sense? Warfield sensitizes us to the problem and offers words of caution here:
There is, of course, no question that in “modes of operation,” as it is technically called—that is to say, in the functions ascribed to the several persons of the Trinity in the redemptive process, and, more broadly, in the entire dealing of God with the world—the principle of subordination is clearly expressed.… The Son is sent by the Father and does His Father’s will (Jn. vi:38).… In crisp decisiveness, Our Lord even declares, indeed: ‘My Father is greater than I’ (Jn. xiv.28).… But it is not so clear that the principle of subordination rules also in “modes of subsistence,” as it is technically phrased; that is to say, in the necessary relation of the Persons of the Trinity to one another. The very richness and variety of the expression of their subordination, the one to the other, in modes of operation, create a difficulty in attaining certainty whether they are represented as also subordinate the one to the other in modes of subsistence. Question is raised in each case of apparent intimation of subordination in modes of subsistence, whether it may not, after all, be explicable as only another expression of subordination in modes of operation. It may be natural to assume that a subordination in modes of operation rests on a subordination in modes of subsistence; that the reason why it is the Father that sends the Son … is that the Son is subordinate to the Father.… But we are bound to bear in mind that these relations of subordination in modes of operation may just as well be due to a convention, an agreement, between the Persons of the Trinity—a “Covenant” as it is technically called—by virtue of which a distinct function in the work of redemption is voluntarily assumed by each. It is eminently desirable, therefore, at the least that some definite evidence of subordination in modes of subsistence should be discoverable before it is assumed.44
In the context we are considering it is not at all evident that, in “subordinating” himself to “the Father,” Jesus was denying that he was in essence one with the Father. When the charge of blasphemy for making himself “equal with God” was leveled against him, a charge which hounded him to the very end of his life and which became finally the basis for the judgment of death against him (see 8:58–59; 10:33; 19:7; in the Synoptics, Matt. 26:65–66; Mark 14:61–62; Luke 22:70–71), he said nothing to allay the suspicions of the religious leaders concerning him, but followed their charge with the very discourse we have been considering in which he laid claim to the powers and privileges which belong to deity alone.

THE UNITY OF THE SON AND THE FATHER
In his Good Shepherd discourse in John 10:22–39, Jesus asserted that the security of his sheep is grounded in their being kept by both himself and the Father (John 10:28, 29). Then our Lord explained that this coordinated keeping on his and the Father’s part was based on the essential oneness of “the Father” and “the Son”: “I and the Father are one [ἕν ἐσμεν, hen esmen],” he declared (John 10:30; see also 12:45; 14:9, 23). Concerning this declaration B. F. Westcott writes:
It seems clear that the unity here spoken of cannot fall short of unity of essence. The thought springs from the equality of power (my hand, the Father’s hand); but infinite power is an essential attribute of God; and it is impossible to suppose that two beings distinct in essence could be equal in power.45
When Jesus was then confronted by the religious leaders who took up stones to kill him, charging him again with blasphemy (John 10:33), if they were hoping that some word from him would relieve their suspicions, they were to be disappointed, for instead of declaring that they had misunderstood him, to the contrary, arguing a minori ad majus (“from lesser to greater”), he insisted that if human judges, because they had been made recipients of and were thus the responsible administrators of the justice of the Word of God, could be called “gods” (see Ps. 82:6), how much greater right did he—“the One whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world” (John 10:36)—have to call himself “the Son of God.” The fact that Jesus’ claim to be “the Son of God” both here (10:36) and earlier (5:25) invoked on both occasions the same response from the Jewish opposition, namely, the charge of blasphemy, points up how wrong the modern popular perception is that concludes that Jesus’ claimed “Sonship” intended something less than the claim of deity. “He was not claiming to be God; he was only claiming to be the Son of God,” the saying goes. Such a perception completely overlooks the fact that the religious leadership of his day understood his claim to involve the claim to deity. And that Jesus’ answer intended the claim to deity is evident also from the fact, as Vos notes with respect to the word order of “sanctified” and “sent” in Jesus’ explanation of his right to the title “the Son of God,” that “He places the sanctifying before the sending into the world, because it preceded the latter, and a suggestion of pre-existence accompanies the statement.”46 Jesus asserts here that he is not “the Son” because he was sent, but rather was “the Son” and was “sanctified” (that is, was “set apart” and invested with the messianic task) before he was sent; and he was sent precisely because only One such as himself as “the Son” could complete the task which the messianic investiture entailed.

THE SON’S ETERNAL PREEXISTENCE
This last observation of Vos catapults us into the center of a controversy that is raging around the person of Christ: Did Jesus claim for himself preexistence, and if so, in what sense: in the ontological (essential) or in the ideal (“foreknown”) sense? The Gospel of John witnesses that Jesus claimed eternal preexistence: “Glorify me, Father,” Jesus prayed, “with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was” (John 17:1, 5), indeed, with “my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (17:24). This claim on Jesus’ part to an eternal preexistence with his Father is not an aberration, for he speaks elsewhere, though in somewhat different terms, of that same preexistence:
John 3:13: “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man.”
John 6:38: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” (See also 6:33, 50, 58)
John 6:46: “[No one] has seen the Father except him who is from [παρά, para, with genitive; that is, from the s
ide of] the Father.”
John 6:62: “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending where he was before [τὸ πρότερον, to proteron]?”
John 8:23: “You are from below, I am from above; you are from this world, I am not from this world.”
John 8:38: “I speak of what I have seen with the Father.”
John 8:42: “I came out and came forth from [ἐκ, ek, with genitive] God.”
John 16:28: “I came out from [ἐκ, ek, παρά, para] the Father, and have come into the world” (see also 9:39; 12:46; 18:37).
But perhaps the greatest assertion to eternal preexistence is to be found in Jesus’ “I am” saying of John 8:58. Most of his “I am” sayings, it is true, are supplied with a subjective complement of some kind, such as:
“I am the Bread of Life” (John 6:35, 48, 51);
“I am the Light of the World” (8:12; 9:5);
“I am the Door of the Sheep” (10:7, 9);
“I am the Good Shepherd” (10:11, 14);
“I am the Resurrection and the Life” (11:25);
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (14:6); and
“I am the Vine” (15:1, 5).
But according to D. A. Carson, “two are undoubtedly absolute in both form and content … and constitute an explicit self-identification with Yahweh who had already revealed himself to men in similar terms (see esp. Isa. 43:10-11).”47 The two sayings Carson refers to are in John 8:58 and 1

[epistemaniac]

John 1:18
In this verse we face a problem which we have not faced before in our appraisal of verses in which Jesus is either described or addressed as θεός, theos. Here any conclusions we reach must be made on the basis of determining the original reading in the Greek text. Did the original text of John 1:18 read (1) ὁ μονογενής, ho monogenēs, (2) ὁ μονογενής υἱός, ho monogenēs huios, (3) μονογενὴς θεός, monogenēs theos, or (4) ὁ μονογενὴς θεός, ho monogenēs theos?
The first reading, although it has in its favor the fact that it is the shortest, may be dismissed because it has no Greek manuscript support whatever. The second reading has in its favor the support of the Greek uncials A, the third corrector of C, K, a later supplement to W, X, D, Q, 063, and many late minuscule manuscripts from the Byzantine tradition. It is also found in the Old Latin, the Latin Vulgate, the Curetonian Syriac, the text of the Harclean Syriac, and the Armenian version. It is also found in about twenty church fathers. In addition, it has in its favor the fact that, apart from John 1:14 where it stands alone, in the other three places where μονογενής, monogenēs, occurs in the Johannine literature, it appears in a construction with υἱός, huios (John 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9). But this reading has three strikes against it. First, on the basis of the text-critical canon that “manuscripts are to be weighed, not counted,” the textual support for this reading, in comparison with the two remaining readings, is not impressive, being found mainly in inferior and late manuscripts. Second, the fact that it is found in some significant church fathers is not a substantive argument in its favor, inasmuch as the Ante-Nicene Fathers tended to “follow the analogy of the versions,” υἱός, huios, being “one of the numerous Ante-Nicene readings of the ‘Western type’ … [which fail to] approve themselves as original in comparison with the alternative readings.”131 Third, while it can be readily understood, if θεός, theos, were the original reading, how υἱός, huios, could have arisen, namely, through the scribal tendency to conform a strange reading to a more common one (in this case, to the formula in John 3:16, 18, and 1 John 4:9), it is difficult to explain why a scribe would have changed υἱός, huios, to θεός, theos.
The two remaining readings, both supporting an original θεός, theos, differ only in that the former omits the article while the latter retains it before μονογενής, monogenēs. The manuscript support for the former is Bodmer Papyrus 66, the original hand of א, B, the original hand of C, and L, plus the Syriac Peshitta, the marginal reading of the Harclean Syriac, the Roman Ethiopic, the Diatesseron, and about seventeen church fathers, including the heretical Valentinians and Arius. The manuscript evidence for the latter is Bodmer Papyrus 75, the third hand of א, the Greek minuscule 33 (the best of the cursives), and the Coptic Bohairic. Of these two, the former has the better manuscript support. But the combined weight of both lends exceedingly strong support for the originality of θεός, theos, in John 1:18. It has also in its favor the fact that it is the harder reading (the lectio difficilior). Because the nature of the problem calls for a judgment of evidence, the final decision will always have an element of uncertainty about it, but the evidence is weighty that θεός, theos, is the original reading. Indeed, if it were not for the christological implications in the reading itself (“[the] only [Son], [himself] God”) one suspects that the evidence would be sufficient to carry the field of scholarly opinion. Even so, there is a trend in modern translations to adopt θεός, theos, as the original reading (nasv, niv). Therefore, I would suggest that John 1:18 be translated as follows:

God no man has seen at any time;
the only [Son], [himself] God,
who is continually in the bosom of the Father—
that One revealed him.
The present participle ὁ ὢν, ho ōn, in the third line indicates a continuing state of being: “who is continually in the bosom of the Father.” Leon Morris comments:
The copula “is” expresses a continuing union. The only begotten is continually in the bosom of the Father. When the Word became flesh His cosmic activities did not remain in abeyance until the time of the earthly life was ended. There are mysteries here that man cannot plumb, but we must surely hold that the incarnation meant the adding of something to what the Word was doing, rather than the cessation of most of His activities.132
Thus very probably here in John 1:18 we have another instance of θεός, theos, as a title for Christ, and the context clearly shows that John regarded Jesus as God the Son incarnate.
Miscellanea
John’s Gospel explicates Jesus’ self-understanding particularly in his “Son of God” sayings (see John 5:17–26; 10:30, 36), his “Son of Man” sayings (see 3:13; 6:62), and his “I am” sayings (see 8:24, 58). There is also corroborative evidence supporting Christ’s deity in John’s record of his “works” and his report of Jesus’ disciples’ testimonies respecting him (see 1:34, 49; 6:69; 11:27; 16:30; 20:28). Now in that John incorporated these data in his Gospel, we may assume that they reflect his own Christology as well, for he expressly declares that he wrote what he did in order to bring his readers to faith in Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31). Surely, for example, the high incarnational Christology in his Prologue reflects his personal Christology. But there are three other features in John’s Gospel which we have not yet treated in any direct way that afford still further insight into his personal Christology.
First, there are the two paragraphs in John 3:16–21 and 3:31–36, which may be in their contexts continuing remarks by Jesus and by John the Baptist respectively (the niv seems to construe them as such), but which may be reflections by John the Evangelist himself on the themes touched upon by Jesus and the Baptist. If the latter case is correct, we have in both instances discourses by John upon the transcendent nature and origin of Jesus. In 3:16–21, he speaks of Jesus as God’s “unique Son” (ὁ υἱος ὁ μονογενής, ho huios ho monogenēs, 3:16, 18), whom God “sent into the world” (3:17), who himself, as the Light, “has come into the world” (3:19), and through faith in whom eternal life is mediated (3:16, 18). In 3:31–36, the same themes are advanced: Jesus is God’s Son whom God “sent” (3:34) and who may be thus characterized as himself “the One who comes from above” (3:31a) and “the One who comes from heaven” (3:31b). What Jesus declares is what he himself has seen and heard in heaven (3:32). He is “over all” (3:31) in that his Father “has given all things into his hand” (3:35), including the Spirit without limit (3:34). And, as in the former paragraph, the destiny of men and women turns upon their relation to him (3:36). These features—the “descent” of Christ from the supernal world, the experiential character of his knowledge of the things of heaven, his identification with God so that to hear him is to seal the veracity of God, his all-comprehensive authority in the sphere of revelation, the funct
ion of faith in him as mediating eternal life while unbelief results in exclusion from life and permanent abiding under the wrath of God—these feature all underscore both the preexistence and the absolutely transcendent character of Jesus Christ.
Second, when this perception of Jesus is coupled with John’s citation of Isaiah 6:10 in 12:40, bringing out the divine sovereignty in salvation and reprobation, and concerning which citation John declares: “These things Isaiah said because he saw his [the preincarnate Son’s] glory, and spoke concerning him,” one must conclude that the transcendent character of Jesus Christ is the transcendence of Yahweh himself, for it was “Yahweh, seated on a throne, high and exalted” (Isa. 6:1; see 57:15) whom Isaiah reports that he saw. As Leon Morris remarks:
John sees in the words of the prophet primarily a reference to the glory of Christ. Isaiah spoke these things “because he saw his glory.” The words of Isaiah 6:3 refer to the glory of Yahweh, but John puts no hard and fast distinction between the two. To him it is plain that Isaiah had in mind the glory revealed in Christ.133
This being so, it should not go unnoticed that it was the preincarnate Christ who commissioned and sent Isaiah on his prophetic mission, a fact which Jesus himself noted in Matthew 23:34 (see Luke 11:49) and to which Peter alludes in 1 Peter 1:11.
Third, since for John the glory of Christ is equivalent to the glory of Yahweh himself, it is highly probable that when John refers to Christ as “the Lord” (ὁ κύριος, ho kyrios) in the narrative of his Gospel (see 4:1; 6:23; 11:2; 20:20; 21:12), he intends the title, used as it is in the Septuagint to translate the divine name Yahweh, in its most eminent, that is to say, in its divine, Yahwistic sense.
There can be no doubt that John’s Gospel Christology is incarnational in the highest conceivable sense, Jesus Christ being true God and true man. No view of John’s Christology which would claim otherwise can claim to be exegetically sound.
John’s Epistolary Christology
It is immediately evident from even a cursory reading of John’s letters that “the same concept of incarnation which one finds in the Gospel is present in 1 and 2 John, and indeed it is the principal Christological idea in these Epistles.”134 This is plain from the fact that John defends (1) the dual confession that Jesus is both the Christ (1 John 2:22; 5:1) and the Son of God (1 John 2:22–23; 4:15; 5:5; see 1:3, 7; 2:24; 3:8, 23; 4:9, 14; 5:9, 11, 12, 13, 20), and (2) the incarnational prerequisite that God the Father “sent” his Son into the world (1 John 4:9, 10, 14), and that, having been “sent,” the Son was “sent” in such a way that he “came in the flesh” (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7; see 1 John 5:6, 20) and thus was “manifested” to men (1 John 1:2 [twice]; 3:8) in such a way that, while still “the Eternal Life, which was with the Father” from the beginning (1 John 1:1–2), he could be heard, seen with the human eye, gazed upon, and touched by human hands. So intense is John’s conviction regarding the necessity of a real incarnation that he makes the confession, “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,” a test of orthodoxy—to confess the same is to be “of God”; to deny it is to be “not of God” but “of Antichrist” (1 John 4:2–3). The incarnate Christ was also sinless (3:5).
1 John 5:20
One verse in 1 John requires special notice, for in it John quite likely intends to employ θεός, theos, as he does in John 1:1, 18, and 20:28, as a christological title. Translated literally, 1 John 5:20 reads:
And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding in order that we may know the True One. And we are in the True One in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.
The issue is to determine who it is that John had in mind when he wrote, “This is the true God and eternal life,” the Father or the Son. I am personally persuaded that a better case can be made for understanding θεός, theos, as referring to the Son.
The case for the Father being the referent of “the true God” highlights the following features in the verse. First, reference to the Father is indirectly but clearly present in the genitives “of God” and the “his” following the two occurrences of “the Son.” Second, it is likely that the two occurrences of “true One” (τὸν ἀληθινόν, τῷ ἀληθινῷ, ton alēthinon, tō alēthinō) both refer to the Father because (1) it would be a harsh rendering to interpret John as saying that “he [the Son] has given us understanding that we may know the true One [that is, himself]”; (2) the Father clearly seems to be the referent of the second occurrence of “true One” because of the αὐτοῦ, autou, in the phrase immediately following it, “in his Son” (the niv rendering, “even in his Son,” implies the presence of a καί, kai, before the prepositional phrase, but there is no καί, kai, in the Greek text); (3) it is truer to Johannine thought to represent the Son’s messianic mission as a revelation of the Father than as a revelation of himself (see John 1:18; 17:3–4). These features, it is urged, since it is highly unlikely that John would have referred to two different persons so closely in the same verse by the one adjective “true,” point to the Father as the referent of John’s phrase “the true God.” This would accord with John’s clear reference to the Father as “the only true God” in John 17:3. Accordingly, John’s assertion at the end of 5:20, “This is the true God and eternal life,” it is urged, has as its referent the Father. Both exegetically and theologically, this interpretation is possible, and it has been espoused by Brooke (ICC), Westcott, and Dodd. Murray J. Harris also urges this interpretation in his Jesus as God.135
But there are four grammatical or exegetical considerations which tell against this interpretation. First, the nearest possible antecedent to οὗτός, houtos, (“This One”) is the immediately preceding phrase “Jesus Christ,” and it is a generally sound exegetically principle to find the antecedent of a demonstrative pronoun in the nearest possible noun to it unless there are compelling reasons for not doing so. There are no such reasons here, as there are in the oft-cited counter examples of 1 John 2:22 or 2 John 7, which would require that one go further forward in the sentence to “his” or to “true One” or to “God.” (The suggestion of some critics that “in his Son, Jesus Christ” is a gloss and should therefore be omitted, this being suggested in order to make “the true One” the nearest antecedent, has no manuscript support and is a mere expediency.)
Second, to choose the more distant antecedent—that is, the Father, injects a tautology into the verse, for one does not need to be informed that the Father, who has just been twice identified already as the “true One,” is “the true God,” whereas John advances the thought and avoids the tautology if he is saying that Jesus Christ is “the true God.” It is true that Jesus describes the Father as “the only true God” in John 17:3, but there the Father has not been previously identified as the “true One.”
Third, both the singular οὗτός, houtos, and the fact that “true God” and “eternal life” both stand under the regimen of the single article before “God,” thereby binding the two predicates closely together on the pattern, for example, of “the true God who is (also for us) eternal life” (unless both are titles of a person, which seems preferable for this avoids placing a person and an abstract concept under the regimen of a single article) indicate that one
person is before the mind of the apostle. This eliminates the suggestion of some that the first title refers to the Father and the second refers to the Son. And while it is true that the Father has life in himself (John 5:26; 6:57) and gives to men eternal life (1 John 5:11), he is nowhere designated “the Eternal Life” as is Jesus in 1 John 1:2 (see also John 1:4; 6:57; 11:25; 14:6). “This predicate fits Jesus better than it fits God,” writes Raymond E. Brown.136 But then if Jesus Christ is the referent of “Eternal Life,” and if both titles refer to one person, it would follow that he is also the referent of “the true God.”
Fourth, while John reports that Jesus describes the Father as “the only true God” (John 17:3), he himself either describes or records that Jesus describes himself as “the true Light” (John 1:9; 1 John 2:8; see John 1:14, 17), “the true Bread” (John 6:32), “the true Vine” (John 15:1), “the true One” (Rev. 3:7; 19:11), “the true Witness” (Rev. 3:14), and “the true Sovereign” (Rev. 6:10). We have already established that John is not at all reticent about designating Christ as “God” (see John 1:1, 1:18, 20:28). So just as “the true One” can refer as a title both to the Father (1 John 5:20) and to the Son (Rev. 3:7), there is nothing that would preclude John from bringing together the adjective “true,” which is used of Jesus elsewhere, and the noun “God” which he himself has used of Jesus, and applying both in their combined form as “the true God” to Jesus Christ. These considerations make it highly probable that 1 John 5:20 is another occurrence of θεός, theos, as a christological title. Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Jerome, Bede, Luther, and Calvin in earlier times, and Charles Hodge, Bengel, R. L. Dabney, B. B. Warfield, Raymond E. Brown, F. F. Bruce, R. Bultmann, I. H. Marshall, John Murray, Olshausen, Schnackenburg, and the translators of the niv, to name only a few in more modern times, have so interpreted John here.
Portraying Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, then, as just “the true God and Eternal Life” (1 John 5:20) and the Co-source with the Father of the blessings of grace, mercy, and peace (2 John 3), who “came in the flesh” and who also came “through water and blood, not with the water only but with the water and with the blood,” John asserts a “real and lasting union between the Son of God and the flesh of Jesus”137 from the very beginning of Jesus’ life and throughout his ministry, including even the event of his death. Presupposing the same concept of incarnation as is found in John 1:1–3, 14, John leaves no room for a docetic or an adoptionist Christology. Only the real incarnation of the Son of God satisfies all the doctrinal affirmations of these letters.
There is no explicit Christology in 3 John, the only allusion to Christ being the reference to “the Name” in verse 7. But about this term Westcott writes: “From the contexts it is evident that ‘the Name’ is ‘Jesus Christ’ … , or, as it is written at length, ‘Jesus Christ, the Son of God’ (John xx.31; I John iv.15). This ‘Name’ is in essence the sum of the Christian Creed.… When analyzed it reveals the triune ‘Name’ into which the Christian is baptized, Matt. xxviii.19.”138
John’s Christology in the Revelation
The nature of the Revelation as “apocalyptic,” being unique within the New Testament corpus, one should not be surprised to find its Christology to be more “marvelous,” if not more “other-worldly,” than elsewhere in the New Testament. But this is not to suggest that its representation of Christ differs in any essential way from the Christology of Christ himself or of Paul, or of the Synoptic Evangelists, or of the writers of the General Epistles, or of that of the rest of the Johannine corpus. But it must be acknowledged that its Christology is more consistently “advanced,” to use Beasley-Murray’s term,139 in that it portrays Christ almost singularly from the perspective of his state of exaltation.
The customary names and titles for Jesus are still present—”Jesus” (1:9 [twice]; 12:17; 14:12; 17:6; 19:10 [twice]; 20:4; 22:16), “Christ” (20:4, 6; see also “his [the Lord’s] Christ,” 11:15; “his [God’s] Christ,” 12:10), “Jesus Christ” (1:1, 2, 5), “Lord” (11:8; probably 14:13; see also “the Lord of lords,” 17:14; 19:16; and “the Lord’s Day,” 1:10), “Lord Jesus” (22:20, 21), “a son of man,” meaning “a man” (1:13; 14:14; see Dan. 7:13–14), “the Son of God” (once, in 2:18; but see “My Father,” 2:27; 3:5, 21; and “his God and Father,” 1:6), and “the Word of God” (19:13). But by far, the most common (twenty-eight times), almost personal, “new” name which John (1:1, 9; 22:8) uses for the glorified Christ is “the Lamb” (ἀρνίον, arnion, 5:6, 8, 12, 13; 6:1, 16; 7:9, 10, 14, 17; 12:11; 13:8; 14:1, 4 [twice], 10; 15:3; 17:14 [twice]; 19:7, 9; 21:9, 14, 22, 23, 27; 22:1, 3), a representation found elsewhere in the New Testament only at John 1:29, 36, and 1 Peter 1:19 (see Acts 8:32) where the word is ἀμνός, amnos. What is remarkable about this title in the Revelation is the fact that, while “the Lamb” is identified as “the Lamb that was slain” (5:6, 9, 12; 13:8), with allusions to his death in such an expression as “the blood of the Lamb” (7:14; 12:11), and while the term itself, as Warfield notes, always carries the “implied reference to the actual sacrifice,”140 never is the One so designated still a figure of meekness in a state or condition of humility. Isbon T. Beckwith observes:

[Lamb] is the name given to him in the most august scenes. As the object of the worship offered by the hosts of heaven and earth, chapts. 4–5; as the unveiler of the destinies of the ages, chapts. 5–6; as one enthroned, before whom and to whom the redeemed render the praise of their salvation, 7:9ff.; as the controller of the book of life, 13:8; as the Lord of the hosts on mount Zion, 14:1; as the victor over the hosts of Antichrist, 17:14; as the spouse of the glorified Church, 19:7; as the temple and light of the new Jerusalem, 21:22f.; as the sharer in the throne of God, 22:1, —Christ is called the Lamb. Nowhere in the occurrence of the name is there evident allusion to the figure of meekness and gentleness in suffering.141
In other words, if Jesus is “the Lamb” in the Revelation, it is as the “Lamb glorified” that he is depicted. And it is this depiction of Christ as the glorified Lamb which is dominant throughout the Apocalypse.
Of course, he is certainly a human Messiah still, as the “male child” (Rev. 12:5, 13), the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” (5:5), and the “Root and Offspring of David” (5:5; 22:16) who is capable of dying, but who by his exaltation is the “Firstborn from the dead” (1:5), and thus the “Ruler of the kings of the earth” (1:5), indeed, the “King of kings and Lord of lords” (19:16; see 17:14). But while he is set off over against God in that he is the Son of God (2:18) and the Word of God (19:13), and in the sense that God is his Father (1:6; 2:27; 3:5, 21; 14:1), indeed, even in the sense that God is his God (1:6; 3:2, 12; see 11:15; 12:10) who gives to him both the authority to rule (2:27) and the Revelation itself to show to his servants (1:1), he is represented as being himself divine. Beckwith observes again in this connection:
Nowhere else are found these wonderful scenes revealing to the eye and ear the majesty of Christ’s ascended state, and these numerous utterances expressing in terms applicable to God alone the truth of his divine nature and power. He is seen in the first vision in a form having the semblance of a man, yet glorified with attributes by which the Old Testament writers have sought to portray the glory of God; his hair is white as snow, his face shines with
the dazzling light of the sun, his eyes are a flame of fire, his voice as the thunder of many waters; he announces himself as eternal, as one who though he died is the essentially living One, having all power over death, 1:13–18. He appears in the court of heaven as coequal with God in the adoration offered by the highest hosts of heaven and by all the world, 5:6–14. He is seen coming forth on the clouds as the judge and arbiter of the world, 14:14–16. Wearing crowns and insignia which mark him as King of kings and Lord of lords, he leads out the armies of heaven to the great battle with Antichrist, 19:11–21. In keeping with these scenes, attributes and prerogatives understood to belong to God only are assigned to him either alone or as joined with God; he is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, 22:13, 1:17, 2:8—a designation which God also utters of himself, 1:8, see Is. 44:6, 48:12; worship is offered to him in common with God, 7:10, 5:13—a worship which angelic beings are forbidden to receive, 19:10; doxologies are raised to him as to God, 1:6; the throne of God is his throne, the priests of God are his priests, 3:21, 22:1, 20:6; life belongs essentially to him as to God, compare 1:18 with 4:9, 10.142
In this same regard H. B. Swete writes:
What is the relation of Christ, in His glorified state, to God? (i) He has the prerogatives of God. He searches men’s hearts (2:23); He can kill and restore to life (1:18; 2:23); He receives a worship which is rendered without distinction to God (5:13); His priests are also priests of God (20:6); He occupies one throne with God (22:1, 3), and shares one sovereignty (11:15). (ii) Christ receives the titles of God. He is the Living One (1:18), the Holy and the True (3:7), the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End (22:13). (iii) Passages which in the Old Testament relate to God are without hesitation applied to Christ, e.g., Deut. 10:17 (Apoc. 17:14), Prov. 3:12 (Apoc. 3:19), Dan. 7:9 (Apoc. 1:14), Zech. 4:10 (Apoc. 5:6). Thus the writer seems either to coordinate or to identify Christ with God. Yet he is certainly not conscious of any tendency to ditheism, for his book … is rigidly monotheistic; nor, on the other hand, is he guilty of confusing the two Persons.143
Beasley-Murray likewise affirms:

Constantly the attributes of God are ascribed to Christ, as in the opening vision of the first chapter, which is significantly a vision of Christ and not of God. The lineaments of the risen Lord are those of the Ancient of Days and of his angel in the book of Daniel (chs. 7 and 10). Christ is confessed as Alpha and Omega (22:13), as God is also (1:8). The implications of the claim are drawn out in the book as a whole.… In the closing vision of the city of God … God and the Lamb are united as Lord of the kingdom and source of its blessedness. It is especially noteworthy that John depicts the throne of God and the Lamb as the source of the river of water of life in the city, thereby conveying the notion of a single throne, a single rule, and a single source of life. He adds, ‘his servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads’ (22:3f.). In the context it is difficult to interpret the pronoun ‘his’ as meaning anything other than ‘God and the Lamb’ as a unity. The Lamb remains the mediator … , yet he is inseparable from the God who enacts his works … through him.144
John’s Revelation thus unites its “other worldly” witness to the prior consentient testimony of the entire New Testament in support of the full and unabridged deity of the Son of God.

Old Testament Yahweh Passages Applied to Jesus
The New Testament writers show no hesitancy in applying to Christ Old Testament descriptions and privileges that are reserved specifically for Yahweh. For instance, (1) Moses’ description of Yahweh as “King of kings” (Deut. 10:17) John applies to Christ (Rev. 17:14; 19:16); (2) the author of Hebrews applies the entirety of Psalm 102:25–27 to him (1:10–12); (3) Proverbs 18:10 provides the background for Peter’s assertion in Acts 4:12; (4) Joel’s summons to trust in Yahweh (2:32) Paul employs to summon men to faith in Christ (Rom. 10:13); (5) when Isaiah looked upon Yahweh (Isa. 6:1–3), according to John he was beholding the glory of the preincarnate Son of God (John 12:40–41); (6) Isaiah’s call to sanctify Yahweh in the heart (8:12–13) Peter applies directly to Christ—he is the one who is to be sanctified as Lord in the heart (1 Pet. 3:14–15); (7) Isaiah’s representation of Yahweh as a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall (8:14) Paul applies to Christ (Rom. 9:32–33); (8) Yahweh, whose coming would be preceded by Yahweh’s forerunner (Isa. 40:3; Mal. 3:1; 4:5), is equated with Christ (Matt. 3:3; 11:10; Mark 1:2–3; Luke 1:16–17; 3:4; John 1:23); (9) Jesus himself employs Yahweh’s words in Isaiah 43:10 and 45:22 to summon men to be his witnesses and to rest in him (Acts 1:8; Matt. 11:28); (10) Isaiah’s description of Yahweh as “the first and the last” (44:6) John employs to describe the glorified Christ (Rev. 2:8; 22:12–13); (11) Yahweh, “before whom every knee shall bow and by whom every mouth shall swear (Isa. 45:23), Paul identifies as Christ (Rom. 14:10; Phil. 2:10); and (12) Yahweh, the pierced One upon whom men would look and mourn (Zech. 12:10), John tells us is the Christ (John 19:37).

A Summary of Θεός, Theos, as a Christological Title
In light of this overwhelming amount of evidence for Jesus’ full, unabridged deity, it is not at all surprising, as noted, that upon occasion the New Testament writers actually refer to him as θεός, theos, the title normally reserved for the Father. For example,
1. Exactly one week after Jesus’ resurrection, in the presence of the other ten disciples, Thomas worshiped him by his acclamation: “[You are] my Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
2. In his letter to the Romans Paul speaks of him as “over all, the ever-blessed God” (Rom. 9:5).
3. In his letter to Titus Paul speaks of Christ as “our great God and Savior” (Titus 2:13).
4. In his farewell address to the Ephesians elders at Miletus, Paul charged: “Be shepherds of the church of God which he bought with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
5. In his second letter Peter refers to him as “our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:1).
6. In the Letter to the Hebrews God himself is represented as referring to the Son as “God” (Heb. 1:8).
7. In the first verse of his Gospel John informs us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and then he writes: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
8. In John 1:18, the closing verse of his prologue, John writes: “No one has seen God at any time. But his only [Son, himself] God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.”
9. In 1 John 5:20, John writes: “we are … in his Son, Jesus Christ. This One is the true God and Eternal Life.”
Thus the New Testament intends to teach that Jesus Christ is divine in the same sense that God the Father is divine.

THE DEITY AND PERSONAL SUBSISTENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
The third person of the Godhead is referred to in Scripture in many striking ways. In the Old Testament, in addition to the numerous references to him simply as “the Spirit of God” (Gen. 1:2 et al.) and “the Spirit of Yahweh” (Judg. 3:10 et al.), he is designated “the Spirit of the Lord God” (Isa. 61:1), God’s “good Spirit” (Neh. 9:20), God’s “Holy Spirit” (Ps. 51:11), Yahweh’s “Holy Spirit” (Isa. 63:10, 11), “the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding” (Isa. 11:2), “the Spirit of counsel and of power” (Isa. 11:2), “the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord” (Isa. 11:2), and “the Spirit of grace and supplication” (Zech. 12:10).
In the New
Testament, in addition to the numerous references to him as “the Spirit of God” (Matt. 3:16 et al.), he is designated as “the Spirit of the living God” (2 Cor. 3:3), “the sevenfold Spirit of God” (Rev. 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6; see Isa. 11:2), “the Spirit of your Father” (Matt. 10:20), “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead” (Rom. 8:11), “the Spirit of [God’s] Son” (Gal. 4:6), “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9; 1 Pet. 1:11), “the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:19), “the Holy Spirit” (Luke 11:13), “the Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:13), “the eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14), “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:17; 15:26 16:13), “the Spirit of sonship [or adoption]” (Rom. 8:15), “the Spirit of life” (Rev. 11:11), “the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29), “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” (Eph. 1:17), “the Spirit of glory and of God” (1 Pet. 4:14), and the “Counselor [or Comforter]” (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7).
In several other ways, in addition to these titles, the Scriptures affirm the full, unabridged deity of the Holy Spirit:
1. He is identified as God: according to Peter, when Ananias “lied to the Holy Spirit,” he was “lying to God” (Acts 5:3–4).
2. He is identified as the Yahweh of the Old Testament: (a) what Isaiah reports that Yahweh said in Isaiah 6:9–10, Paul asserts that the Holy Spirit said (Acts 28:25–27), (b) what the Psalmist puts in the mouth of Yahweh in Psalm 95:7–11, the author of Hebrews puts in the mouth of the Holy Spirit (Heb. 3:7–9), and  where Leviticus 26:11–12 foretells Yahweh’s “dwelling with his people,” Paul, citing the Leviticus passage, speaks of the church in 2 Corinthians 6:16 as the antitypical “temple of the living God” with whom Yahweh dwells. And how does Yahweh dwell in his church? In the person of the Holy Spirit (who, according to Romans 8:9, is also both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ).
3. Though distinguished from them, he is represented as equal with the Father and the Son in the great Trinitarian passages of the New Testament (Matt. 3:16; 28:19; 1 Cor. 12:4–6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 2:18; 4:4–6; 1 Pet. 1:2). In Matthew 28:19 he is, along with the Son, brought into and included within the divine Name itself, surely divine since it is the “name” of the Father.
4. He possesses divine attributes: he is eternal (Heb. 9:14; see also “with you forever” in John 14:16), omnipresent (Ps. 139:7–10), omnipotent (Ps. 104:30; Rom. 15:19), omniscient (Isa. 40:13–14; 1 Cor. 2:10–11), and sovereign (John 3:8).
5. He comes from the Father (John 15:26), and is sent by the Father and the Son (John 16:7; 14:26; see also John 14:18; Acts 2:33; 16:7; Rom. 8:9–10).
6. Accordingly, he does divine works: he creates (Gen. 1:2; Job 26:13a; 33:4; Ps. 104:30a), regenerates (Ezek. 37:1–14; John 3:5–6; Titus 3:5), resurrects (Ezek. 37:12–14; Rom. 8:11), and exercises divine authority in Christ’s church (Acts 13:2, 4; 15:28; 16:6–7). More specifically, he effected Mary’s virginal conception (Matt. 1:18–20; Luke 1:35), he anointed and empowered Christ throughout his earthly ministry and in the hour of his death (Isa. 11:1–2; 42:1–3; 61:1–2; Matt. 12:28; Luke 4:1–18; John 1:32–33; 3:34; Acts 10:38; Heb 9:14), glorifies Christ (John 16:13–14), inspired the Scriptures (John 14:26; 16:13–14; Eph. 6:17; 1 Pet. 1:11; 2 Pet. 1:20–21), convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8–11), invites men to come to Christ (Rev. 22:17), builds the church (Eph. 2:22), “comes upon” and indwells believers as the “seal,” the “down payment,” and “firstfruits” of their full inheritance (Joel 2:28; Ezek. 36:24–27; John 7:38; Acts 2:17; 8:15–17; 10:44–45; 11:15; Rom. 8:9–11, 23; 2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13–14; 4:30), baptizes (that is, regenerates; John 3:8), which leads to faith in Christ (1 John 5:1), dominion over sin (1 John 3:9; 5:18), works of righteousness (1 John 2:29), and love for others (1 John 4:7), induces believers to their perception of Jesus as Lord (1 Cor. 12:3) and to their filial consciousness of God as their Father (Rom. 8:15–16; Gal. 4:6), empowers believers to boldness, love, and self-discipline (Acts 4:29; 2 Tim. 1:7), sanctifies (1 Cor. 6:11; Rom. 15:16; Gal. 5:16–18), produces holy fruit in the believer (Gal. 5:22–23), gives “gifts” to the believer (1 Cor. 12:1–11), intercedes for them in their ignorance (Rom. 8:26–27), and raises them to glory from the dead (Rom. 8:11).
Thus the Holy Spirit is represented in Holy Scripture as fully divine. The more pertinent issue relative to the Holy Spirit and the doctrine of the Trinity is whether Holy Scripture represents the Holy Spirit not only as personal but also as a person distinct from the persons of the Father and the Son. This I believe it does, for the following reasons:
1. Personal pronouns are used of him (John 15:26; 16:13–14; see particularly Acts 10:19–20: “the Spirit said to him, ‘Simon, three men are looking for you.… I have sent them’ ” (see 11:12); Acts 13:2: “the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ ”);
2. Personal properties are ascribed to him, such as understanding or wisdom (Isa. 11:2; 1 Cor. 2:10–11), will (1 Cor. 12:11; John 3:8), and power (Isa. 11:2; Mic. 3:8; Acts 10:38; Rom. 15:13; Eph. 3:16).
3. Personal activities are ascribed to him: he speaks (Mark 13:11b; Acts 13:2; 21:11; 1 Tim. 4:1; Heb. 3:7; 10:15), he reveals (Luke 2:26; 1 Pet. 1:11), he guides into all truth (John 16:13), he teaches (Luke 12:12; John 14:26), he comforts, counsels, helps, and loves the believer (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7; Rom. 15:30; James 4:5), he encourages (Acts 9:31), he warns (1 Tim. 4:1), he appoints to office (Acts 13:2; 20:28), he may be grieved (Isa. 63:10; Eph. 4:30), may be lied to (Acts 5:3), may be resisted (Acts 7:31), and may be blasphemed (Matt. 12:31–32).
These data show that the Holy Spirit is, like Christ, a divine Person. Thus we have to do with three divine Persons in the Godhead—God the Father (for whose deity we have offered no separate argument since it has never been seriously questioned in the church), God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
* * * * *
Today many modern “doctors of the church” would seek to liberate the church from its “bondage to all arcane models of vertical transcendence.” But the Christian need have no doubts that the biblical evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity is on his side: the Bible knows no other God than the one living and true God who has eternally existed as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—tres personae in una substantia. It was his recognition of this fact that lay behind the statement of Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329–c. 389): “I cannot think of the One, but I am immediately surrounded with the splendor of the Three; nor can I clearly discover the Three, but I am suddenly carried back to the One.”145 John Calvin also declared that God “so proclaims Himself the sole God as to offer Himself to be contemplated clearly in three Persons. Unless we grasp these, only the bare and empty name of God flits about in our brains, to the exclusion of the true God” (Institutes, 1. xiii, 2). Moreover, if the triune Personhood of God is given its proper place in biblical soteriology, the several aspects of salvation, as we shall see, fit together “hand in glove” and form one glorious and harmonious whole; if one rejects the triune Personhood of God, both Old and New Testament salvation—particularly the latter—is left in total confusion. And one loses all but an empty perception of God to boot.
The church of Jesus Christ, accordingly, has gladly included within its hymnody such beloved hymns as Reginald Heber’s
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee;
Holy, holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
and the anonymous hymn:
Come, t
hou Almighty King, Help us thy Name to sing,
Help us to praise:
Father, all glorious, O’er all victorious,
Come and reign over us, Ancient of Days.

Come, thou Incarnate Word, Gird on thy mighty sword,
Our prayer attend:
Come, and thy people bless, and give thy Word success;
Spirit of Holiness, On us descend.

Come, Holy Comforter, Thy sacred witness bear
In this glad hour:
Thou who almighty art, Now rule in every heart,
And ne’er from us depart, Spirit of pow’r.

To the great One in Three Eternal praises be,
Hence evermore.
His sovereign majesty May we in glory see,
And to eternity Love and adore.
Reymond, R. L. (1998). A new systematic theology of the Christian faith. Lectures delivered at Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Mo. and Knox Theological Seminary, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (301). Nashville: T. Nelson.

So there are some examples in Scripture where we Trinitarians feel justified in believing in the Trinity, for we believe that the trinity best makes sense of the whole counsel of God. So work your way through this information N, then if you still end up disagreeing, you will at least know pretty well what it is exactly that you are disagreeing with….

or not… which is what actually will happen… you won't read it… you will come up with some lame excuse that this is “man's wisdom” or “man's philosophy” and then you will even end up (sadly) thinking that by saying this you have somehow actually refuted what was written LOL… Yep… that's you Nick… its perfectly fine for you to write all sorts of posts which never mention Scripture once… but no… that isn't an example of “man's wisdom” or “man's tradition”… Why? someone might ask? Well simply because it is the almighty Nick who wrote those posts that never mention scripture one single time. You see on this forum, Nick is the only one allowed to write out his thoughts without referencing scripture at all, because it seems as if he feels that what ever he writes is actually equivalent to scripture or said another way, what Nick says, God says…. so beware of Nick's simplistic answer that tries to dismiss all of the above information. He will try and just dismiss it all by saying that “it's not Scripture” or something along those lines, and then remind him of this the next time he writes out any post that does not include any scripture whatsoever and see what happens!! ROFLOL!!!

blessings,
ken

[Tiffany]

Wow Ken I don't like to be rude, but for your purpose, I doubt that to many are going to read all that you have posted. Just to much. If you would combine some to shorten them, would help. Do know your Song.
Love Irene

[NickHassan]

Yes E,
Many people who are highly regarded for many years have been deceived.
Many do choose the wide and popular path
Jesus is the Son of our God.

[Tiffany]

No where in the Bible can you find the trinity. The Father is above all.. Ephesians 4:6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all.
Love Irene

[epistemaniac]

Quote (Tiffany @ Dec. 14 2008,13:45)

No where in the Bible can you find the trinity. The Father is above all.. Ephesians 4:6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all. Love Irene

nowhere in the bible can you find the bible saying that there will be 66 books in the bible and only 66 books… so please stop with the whole “the word `Trinity' is not found in the Scriptures so it is unbiblical” bit… it is a tired tired old line and proves absolutely nothing in regards to the verity of the doctrine… it may be true… it may be false… but you will never prove it is false by merely stating that the word trinity is not in the bible…

in fact, the word “bible” is not found in the bible either… is it therefore unbiblical…? ROFLOL!!!

blessings,
ken

[NickHassan]

Hi e,
It is not for anyone to prove it is false but for you to justify such a strange belief.
Why does anyone need to prove something to be untrue if scripture does not show it's existence?
Scripture never teaches it and neither tradition nor any so called divines can override scriptural truth.

[epistemaniac]

Quote (Tiffany @ Dec. 14 2008,13:17)

Wow Ken I don't like to be rude, but for your purpose, I doubt that to many are going to read all that you have posted. Just to much. If you would combine some to shorten them, would help. Do know your Song. Love Irene

don't worry about it, that's not rude at all…. besides, it wasn't meant for “people” in general, it was a direct response to Nick…. who had asked for biblical proof of the Trinity… so I gave it to him… I knew he would not read it anyway, because that is just the kind of person he is…. he will ask for chapter and verse, you give it to him and he says you are misunderstanding or incorrectly interpreting the scripture……. So THEN you explain why you think the scripture says what it does, THEN he says you are using the “words and philosophies of men”… and round and round it goes…. so I thought I would just go ahead and provide a really solid line of evidence for the Trinity for anyone else out there who is honest and really wanting to hear a Trinitarian out on the issue… hey disagree… agree… whatever…. just give a person a chance to seriously present their case…. but don't engage in these silly games that Nick likes to play… he doesn't really want to know why people believe what they do, he just wants to keep repeating his own views….

blessings,
ken

[NickHassan]

Hi E,
Still waiting for where Jesus or the prophets or apostles taught that God is a trinity.

[Author]

Posts