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Hi,
SS has kindly given us some of his teachings which I have copied here, and the archtect of the trinity should have a thread on his own I believe.“TERTULLIAN
“For before all things God was alone – being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself. Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say, His own Reason. For God is rational, and Reason was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself. This Reason is His own Thought (or Consciousness) which the Greeks call ‘logos’, by which term we also designate Word or Discourse and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to say that the Word was in the beginning with God; although it would be more suitable to regard Reason as the more ancient; because God had not Word from the beginning, but He had Reason even before the beginning; because also Word itself consists of Reason, which it thus proves to have been the prior existence as being its own substance. Not that this distinction is of any practical moment. For although God had not yet sent out His Word, He still had Him within Himself, both in company with and included within His very Reason, as He silently planned and arranged within Himself everything which He was afterwards about to utter through His Word. Now, whilst He was thus planning and arranging with His own Reason, He was actually causing that to become Word which He was dealing with in the way of Word or Discourse. And that you may the more readily understand this, consider first of all, from your own self, who are made ‘in the image and likeness of God,’ for what purpose it is that you also possess reason in yourself, who are a rational creature….Observe, then, that when you are silently conversing with yourself, this very process is carried on within you by your reason, which meets you with a word at every movement of your thought, at every impulse of your conception. Whatever you think, there is a word; whatever you conceive, there is reason. You must needs speak it in your mind; and while you are speaking, you admit speech as an interlocutor with you, involved in which there is this very reason, whereby, while in thought you are holding converse with your word, you are (by reciprocal action) producing thought by means of that converse with your word. Thus, in a certain sense, the word is a second person within you, through which in thinking you utter speech, and through which also, (by reciprocity of process, ) in uttering speech you generate thought. The word is itself a different thing from yourself. Now how much more fully is all this transacted in God, whose image and likeness even you are regarded as being, inasmuch as He has reason within Himself even while He is silent, and involved in that Reason His Word! I may therefore without rashness first lay this down (as a fixed principle) that even then before the creation of the universe God was not alone, since He had within Himself both Reason, and, inherent in Reason, His Word, which He made second to Himself by agitating it within Himself.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 5)
“We…believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation…that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her – being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 2)
“The Word, therefore, is both always in the Father, as He says, ‘I am in the Father;’ and is always with God, according to what is written, ‘And the Word was with God;’ and never separate from the Father, or other than the Father, since ‘I and the Father are one.’” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 8)
“…the Word of God [is he] ‘through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.’ Now if He too is God, according to John, (who says) ‘The Word was God,’ then you have two Beings – One that commands that the thing be made, and the Other that executes the order and creates. In what sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another, I have already explained: on the ground of Personality, not of Substance – in the way of distinction, not of division….I must everywhere hold one only substance in three coherent and inseparable (Persons)….” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 12)And Isaiah says this: ‘Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?’ Now he would most certainly have said Thine Arm, if he had not wished us to understand that the Father is Lord, and the Son also is Lord. A much more ancient testimony we have also in Genesis: ‘Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.’ Now, either deny that this is Scripture; or else (let me ask) what sort of man you are, that you do not think words ought to be taken and understood in the sense in which they are written, especially when they are not expressed in allegories and parables, but in determinate and simple declarations?” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13)
“…the title of God and Lord is suitable both to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost….” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13)
“I shall reckon [that] two things and two forms of one undivided substance [are] God and His Word, as the Father and the Son.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13)
“And as for the Father's names, God Almighty, the Most High, the Lord of hosts, the King of Israel, the ‘One that is,’ we say (for so much do the Scriptures teach us) that they belonged suitably to the Son also, and that the Son came under these designations, and has always acted in them, and has thus manifested them in Himself to men. ‘All things,’ says He, ‘which the Father hath are mine.’ Then why not His names also? When, therefore, you read of Almighty God, and the Most High, and the God of hosts, and the King of Israel, the ‘One that is,’ consider whether the Son also be not indicated by these designations, who in His own right is God Almighty, in that He is the Word of Almighty God, and has received power over all; is the Most High, in that He is ‘exalted at the right hand of God,’ as Peter declares in the Acts; is the Lord of hosts, because all things are by the Father made subject to Him; is the King of Israel because to Him has especially been committed the destiny of that nation; and is likewise ‘the One that is,’ because there are many who are called Sons, but are not….even the Son of the Almighty is as much almighty as the Son of God is God.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 17)
“Then there is the Paraclete or Comforter, also….‘He shall receive of mine,’ says Christ, just as Christ Himself received of the Father's. Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are one essence, not one Person, as it is said, ‘I and my Father are One,’ in respect of unity of substance not singularity of number.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 25)
“The Word is God….the Word became flesh….the truth is, we find that He is expressly set forth as both God and Man;
the very psalm which we have quoted intimating (of the flesh), that ‘God became Man in the midst of it, He therefore established it by the will of the Father’ – certainly in all respects as the Son of God and the Son of Man, being God and Man, differing no doubt according to each substance in its own especial property, inasmuch as the Word is nothing else but God, and the flesh nothing else but Man. Thus does the apostle also teach respecting His two substances, saying, ‘who was made of the seed of David;’ in which words He will be Man and Son of Man. ‘Who was declared to be the Son of God, according to the Spirit;’ in which words He will be God, and the Word – the Son of God. We see plainly the twofold state, which is not confounded, but conjoined in One Person – Jesus, God and Man.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 27)
“…the Son is the Word, and ‘the Word is God,’ and ‘I and my Father are one.’” (Against Hermogenes, Chapter 18)“We have already asserted that God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word, and Reason, and Power….We have been taught that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated; so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun-there is no division of substance, but merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled. The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities; so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence – in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united.” (Apology, Chapter 21)
“Of course the Marcionites suppose that they have the apostle on their side in the following passage in the matter of Christ's substance – that in Him there was nothing but a phantom of flesh. For he says of Christ, that, ‘being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant,’ not the reality, ‘and was made in the likeness of man,’ not a man, ‘and was found in fashion as a man,’ not in his substance, that is to say, his flesh; just as if to a substance there did not accrue both form and likeness and fashion. It is well for us that in another passage (the apostle) calls Christ ‘the image of the invisible God.’ For will it not follow with equal force from that passage, that Christ is not truly God, because the apostle places Him in the image of God, if, (as Marcion contends, ) He is not truly man because of His having taken on Him the form or image of a man? For in both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image (or ‘fashion’) and likeness and form shall be claimed for a phantom. But since he is truly God, as the Son of the Father, in His fashion and image, He has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, ‘found in the fashion’ and image ‘of a man.’ For when he propounded Him as thus ‘found’ in the manner of a man, he in fact affirmed Him to be most certainly human. For what is found, manifestly possesses existence. Therefore, as He was found to be God by His mighty power, so was He found to be man by reason of His flesh, because the apostle could not have pronounced Him to have ‘become obedient unto death,’ if He had not been constituted of a mortal substance.” (Against Marcion, Book 5, Chapter 20)“You have sometimes read and believed that the Creator's angels have been changed into human form….Has it, then, been permitted to angels, which are inferior to God, after they have been changed into human bodily form, nevertheless to remain angels? And will you deprive God, their superior, of this faculty, as if Christ could not continue to be God, after His real assumption of the nature of man?” (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 3)
“There are, to be sure, other things also quite as foolish (as the birth of Christ), which have reference to the humiliations and sufferings of God….For which is more unworthy of God, which is more likely to raise a blush of shame, that God should be born, or that He should die? That He should bear the flesh, or the cross? Be circumcised, or be crucified? Be cradled, or be coffined? Be laid in a manger, or in a tomb?…Have you, then, cut away all sufferings from Christ, on the ground that, as a mere phantom, He was incapable of experiencing them?…answer me at once, you that murder truth: Was not God really crucified? And, having been really crucified, did He not really die? And, having indeed really died, did He not really rise again?…O thou most infamous of men, who acquittest of all guilt the murderers of God!” (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 5)
“Christ, then, was actuated by the motive which led Him to take human nature. Man's salvation was the motive, the restoration of that which had perished. Man had perished; his recovery had become necessary. No such cause, however, existed for Christ's taking on Him the nature of angels. For although there is assigned to angels also perdition in ‘the fire prepared for the devil and his angels,’ yet a restoration is never promised to them. No charge about the salvation of angels did Christ ever receive from the Father; and that which the Father neither promised nor commanded, Christ could not have undertaken….But was it His object indeed to deliver man by an angel? Why, then, come down to do that which He was about to expedite with an angel's help? If by an angel's aid, why come Himself also? If He meant to do all by Himself, why have an angel too? He has been, it is true, called ‘the Angel of great counsel,’ that is, a messenger, by a term expressive of official function, not of nature. For He had to announce to the world the mighty purpose of the Father, even that which ordained the restoration of man. But He is not on this account to be regarded as an angel, as a Gabriel or a Michael….He…is verily God, and the Son of God[.]” (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 14)“Neither, indeed, was ever used by Christ that familiar phrase of all the prophets, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ For He was Himself the Lord, who openly spake by His own authority, prefacing His words with the formula, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you.’ What need is there of further argument? Hear what Isaiah says in emphatic words, ‘It was no angel, nor deputy, but the Lord Himself who saved them.’” (On the Flesh of Christ, Paragraph 14)”
Note his emphasis in the first part on REASON, being of human wisdom.
Hi SS,
Do you agree with all this man's teaching's? Are they equivalent to the Word of God in your view?Hi,
This is what wikipedia says about him
“Tertullian
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Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicized as Tertullian, (ca. 155–230) was a church leader and prolific author of Early Christianity. He also was a notable early Christian apologist. He was born, lived, and died in Carthage, in what is today Tunisia.Tertullian denounced Christian doctrines he considered heretical, but later in life adopted views that came to be regarded as heretical themselves. He was the first great writer of Latin Christianity, thus sometimes known as the “father of the Latin Church”. He introduced the term Trinity, (Theophilius to Autolycus – 115-181 – introduced the word Trinity in his Book 2, chapter 15 on the creation of the 4th day). as the Latin trinitas, to the Christian vocabulary[1] and also probably of the formula “three Persons, one Substance” as the Latin “tres Personae, una Substantia” (itself from the Koine Greek “treis Hypostases, Homoousios”) and also the terms vetus testamentum (“old testament”) and novum testamentum (“new testament”). In his Apologeticus, he was the first Latin author to qualify Christianism as the 'vera religio', and symmetrically relegating the classical Empire religion and other accepted cults as mere 'superstitions'. Tertullian left the Church of Rome late in his life and joined the heretical Montanists, thus explaining his failure to attain sainthood.”
Poor Tertullian – he didn't know what he wanted or believed towards the end, did he? He sure helped to muddy the waters of truth. I wonder what Jesus will say to him on that Day?
Hi not3,
Barely had the door closed behind the last apostle when greek and babylonian influence took over. The apostasy was very early.I guess that makes the “seeking” all the harder, doesn't it? One must not tire in their efforts to know the only true God, and his Son. Instead of being milk-fed from creeds and pastors/teachers……we have to find meat in the living Word of God. Thankfully, God's Spirit can teach us and lead us into truth.
Hi not3,
Indeed .
We were warned the wolves would strike early.
Acts 20:29
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.Quote (Nick Hassan @ Oct. 05 2006,08:31) Hi,
SS has kindly given us some of his teachings which I have copied here, and the archtect of the trinity should have a thread on his own I believe.“TERTULLIAN
“For before all things God was alone – being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself. Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say, His own Reason. For God is rational, and Reason was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself. This Reason is His own Thought (or Consciousness) which the Greeks call ‘logos’, by which term we also designate Word or Discourse and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to say that the Word was in the beginning with God; although it would be more suitable to regard Reason as the more ancient; because God had not Word from the beginning, but He had Reason even before the beginning; because also Word itself consists of Reason, which it thus proves to have been the prior existence as being its own substance. Not that this distinction is of any practical moment. For although God had not yet sent out His Word, He still had Him within Himself, both in company with and included within His very Reason, as He silently planned and arranged within Himself everything which He was afterwards about to utter through His Word. Now, whilst He was thus planning and arranging with His own Reason, He was actually causing that to become Word which He was dealing with in the way of Word or Discourse. And that you may the more readily understand this, consider first of all, from your own self, who are made ‘in the image and likeness of God,’ for what purpose it is that you also possess reason in yourself, who are a rational creature….Observe, then, that when you are silently conversing with yourself, this very process is carried on within you by your reason, which meets you with a word at every movement of your thought, at every impulse of your conception. Whatever you think, there is a word; whatever you conceive, there is reason. You must needs speak it in your mind; and while you are speaking, you admit speech as an interlocutor with you, involved in which there is this very reason, whereby, while in thought you are holding converse with your word, you are (by reciprocal action) producing thought by means of that converse with your word. Thus, in a certain sense, the word is a second person within you, through which in thinking you utter speech, and through which also, (by reciprocity of process, ) in uttering speech you generate thought. The word is itself a different thing from yourself. Now how much more fully is all this transacted in God, whose image and likeness even you are regarded as being, inasmuch as He has reason within Himself even while He is silent, and involved in that Reason His Word! I may therefore without rashness first lay this down (as a fixed principle) that even then before the creation of the universe God was not alone, since He had within Himself both Reason, and, inherent in Reason, His Word, which He made second to Himself by agitating it within Himself.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 5)
“We…believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation…that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her – being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 2)
“The Word, therefore, is both always in the Father, as He says, ‘I am in the Father;’ and is always with God, according to what is written, ‘And the Word was with God;’ and never separate from the Father, or other than the Father, since ‘I and the Father are one.’” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 8)
“…the Word of God [is he] ‘through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.’ Now if He too is God, according to John, (who says) ‘The Word was God,’ then you have two Beings – One that commands that the thing be made, and the Other that executes the order and creates. In what sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another, I have already explained: on the ground of Personality, not of Substance – in the way of distinction, not of division….I must everywhere hold one only substance in three coherent and inseparable (Persons)….” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 12)And Isaiah says this: ‘Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?’ Now he would most certainly have said Thine Arm, if he had not wished us to understand that the Father is Lord, and the Son also is Lord. A much more ancient testimony we have also in Genesis: ‘Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.’ Now, either deny that this is Scripture; or else (let me ask) what sort of man you are, that you do not think words ought to be taken and understood in the sense in which they are written, especially when they are not expressed in allegories and parables, but in determinate and simple declarations?” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13)
“…the title of God and Lord is suitable both to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost….” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13)
“I shall reckon [that] two things and two forms of one undivided substance [are] God and His Word, as the Father and the Son.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13)
“And as for the Father's names, God Almighty, the Most High, the Lord of hosts, the King of Israel, the ‘One that is,’ we say (for so much do the Scriptures teach us) that they belonged suitably to the Son also, and that the Son came under these designations, and has always acted in them, and has thus manifested them in Himself to men. ‘All things,’ says He, ‘which the Father hath are mine.’ Then why not His names also? When, therefore, you read of Almighty God, and the Most High, and the God of hosts, and the King of Israel, the ‘One that is,’ consider whether the Son also be not indicated by these designations, who in His own right is God Almighty, in that He is the Word of Almighty God, and has received power over all; is the Most High, in that He is ‘exalted at the right hand of God,’ as Peter declares in the Acts; is the Lord of hosts, because all things are by the Father made subject to Him; is the King of Israel because to Him has especially been committed the destiny of that nation; and is likewise ‘the One that is,’ because there are many who are called Sons, but are not….even the Son of the Almighty is as much almighty as the Son of God is God.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 17)
“Then there is the Paraclete or Comforter, also….‘He shall receive of mine,’ says Christ, just as Christ Himself received of the Father's. Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are one essence, not one Person, as it is said, ‘I and my Father are One,
’ in respect of unity of substance not singularity of number.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 25)“The Word is God….the Word became flesh….the truth is, we find that He is expressly set forth as both God and Man; the very psalm which we have quoted intimating (of the flesh), that ‘God became Man in the midst of it, He therefore established it by the will of the Father’ – certainly in all respects as the Son of God and the Son of Man, being God and Man, differing no doubt according to each substance in its own especial property, inasmuch as the Word is nothing else but God, and the flesh nothing else but Man. Thus does the apostle also teach respecting His two substances, saying, ‘who was made of the seed of David;’ in which words He will be Man and Son of Man. ‘Who was declared to be the Son of God, according to the Spirit;’ in which words He will be God, and the Word – the Son of God. We see plainly the twofold state, which is not confounded, but conjoined in One Person – Jesus, God and Man.” (Against Praxeus, Chapter 27)
“…the Son is the Word, and ‘the Word is God,’ and ‘I and my Father are one.’” (Against Hermogenes, Chapter 18)“We have already asserted that God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word, and Reason, and Power….We have been taught that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated; so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun-there is no division of substance, but merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled. The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities; so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence – in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united.” (Apology, Chapter 21)
“Of course the Marcionites suppose that they have the apostle on their side in the following passage in the matter of Christ's substance – that in Him there was nothing but a phantom of flesh. For he says of Christ, that, ‘being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant,’ not the reality, ‘and was made in the likeness of man,’ not a man, ‘and was found in fashion as a man,’ not in his substance, that is to say, his flesh; just as if to a substance there did not accrue both form and likeness and fashion. It is well for us that in another passage (the apostle) calls Christ ‘the image of the invisible God.’ For will it not follow with equal force from that passage, that Christ is not truly God, because the apostle places Him in the image of God, if, (as Marcion contends, ) He is not truly man because of His having taken on Him the form or image of a man? For in both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image (or ‘fashion’) and likeness and form shall be claimed for a phantom. But since he is truly God, as the Son of the Father, in His fashion and image, He has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, ‘found in the fashion’ and image ‘of a man.’ For when he propounded Him as thus ‘found’ in the manner of a man, he in fact affirmed Him to be most certainly human. For what is found, manifestly possesses existence. Therefore, as He was found to be God by His mighty power, so was He found to be man by reason of His flesh, because the apostle could not have pronounced Him to have ‘become obedient unto death,’ if He had not been constituted of a mortal substance.” (Against Marcion, Book 5, Chapter 20)“You have sometimes read and believed that the Creator's angels have been changed into human form….Has it, then, been permitted to angels, which are inferior to God, after they have been changed into human bodily form, nevertheless to remain angels? And will you deprive God, their superior, of this faculty, as if Christ could not continue to be God, after His real assumption of the nature of man?” (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 3)
“There are, to be sure, other things also quite as foolish (as the birth of Christ), which have reference to the humiliations and sufferings of God….For which is more unworthy of God, which is more likely to raise a blush of shame, that God should be born, or that He should die? That He should bear the flesh, or the cross? Be circumcised, or be crucified? Be cradled, or be coffined? Be laid in a manger, or in a tomb?…Have you, then, cut away all sufferings from Christ, on the ground that, as a mere phantom, He was incapable of experiencing them?…answer me at once, you that murder truth: Was not God really crucified? And, having been really crucified, did He not really die? And, having indeed really died, did He not really rise again?…O thou most infamous of men, who acquittest of all guilt the murderers of God!” (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 5)
“Christ, then, was actuated by the motive which led Him to take human nature. Man's salvation was the motive, the restoration of that which had perished. Man had perished; his recovery had become necessary. No such cause, however, existed for Christ's taking on Him the nature of angels. For although there is assigned to angels also perdition in ‘the fire prepared for the devil and his angels,’ yet a restoration is never promised to them. No charge about the salvation of angels did Christ ever receive from the Father; and that which the Father neither promised nor commanded, Christ could not have undertaken….But was it His object indeed to deliver man by an angel? Why, then, come down to do that which He was about to expedite with an angel's help? If by an angel's aid, why come Himself also? If He meant to do all by Himself, why have an angel too? He has been, it is true, called ‘the Angel of great counsel,’ that is, a messenger, by a term expressive of official function, not of nature. For He had to announce to the world the mighty purpose of the Father, even that which ordained the restoration of man. But He is not on this account to be regarded as an angel, as a Gabriel or a Michael….He…is verily God, and the Son of God[.]” (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 14)“Neither, indeed, was ever used by Christ that familiar phrase of all the prophets, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ For He was Himself the Lord, who openly spake by His own authority, prefacing His words with the formula, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you.’ What need is there of further argument? Hear what Isaiah says in emphatic words, ‘It was no angel, nor deputy, but the Lord Himself who saved them.’” (On the Flesh of Christ, Paragraph 14)”
Note his emphasis in the first part on REASON, being of human wisdom.
If your thoughts were a different person as this teaching states then How many persons does one have over a life time?No, my thoughts are NOT another person but are part of me.
When in scripture did the Word become the Son of God? Wasn't it after the Word became flesh?
IHN&L,
Ken
Quote (kenrch @ July 05 2007,07:47) When in scripture did the Word become the Son of God? Wasn't it after the Word became flesh?
Good point. I wonder if this is true.Hi:
I just want to point out that Tertullian states that God was by himself in the beginning and that he says the following relative to John 1:1: This Reason is His own Thought (or Consciousness) which the Greeks call ‘logos’, by which term we also designate Word or Discourse and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to say that the Word was in the beginning with God.
But then he gets off track saying that a thought is a second person etc.
Hi to all
I just read the topic and replies on Tertullian, and thought I fill in a few blanks.
Tertullian was a pagan Lawyer, educated in philosophy, and in Greek and Latin Literature.
He was fascinated with Christians, because they were willing to give up everything for their faith, even their life. He studied their religion, became their defender in Courts, and even became a Christian himself; as has already been noted.
He became one of the earliest Christian writers. His most famous, or perhaps I should say, infamous, work was, “Adversus Praxean”, as already noted as well.
It is this, “his doctrine of the trinity”, that has, as so clearly stated by one of you; muddied the understanding of the word of God so completely. It must have been, what the later to become the Roman Universal Church, looking for; since they made it their doctrine.
It is also said of him, that “his doctrine of the holy Eucharist”, the abomination spoken of by Dan. 12:11, has been much discussed. And yes, this doctrine has in fact become the most important doctrine of the R.U.C.
Tertullian also wrote three books for widows;
In his first book he writes, it is against God's will for widows to remarry.
In his second book he changes his mind, and explains why it is alright for widows to remarry after-all.
However, in his third book he changes his mind again and claims, it is adultery for a widow to remarry.
And again as already noted; in his later years he left the Church.What an inspiring character; I'm surprised he hasn't been declared a saint yet!
God bless
Hello Ken
You ask; When in scripture did the Word become the Son?
The definition for son is; he who receives life, or existence, from the Father.
The definition for Father is; he who gives life to the son.
If you have children, you are a Father; your children owe their existence to you.
Jesus did not receive life, was not brought into existence, when he was born of Mary.
John says, in the beginning was the Word; through the Word all things were created; the Word became flesh. John 1:1, 3, 14.
John referred to the son as the Word for at least two reasons;
One; in the old testament the son did not have a name.
Two; he was the spokesman for God;John 5:37 “…ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.”
John 8:28 “…I do nothing of myself; but as my Father has taught me, I speak these things.”
John 17:8 “For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me;…”
v. 14 “I have given them thy word;”Anywhere in the bible when “God” spoke, it was either the voice of the Word/Son, or of an angel.
Also, if the son did not receive his existence from the Father; then there is no Father and no son.
God bless
Quote (IM4Truth @ July 08 2007,09:53) Hello Ken You ask; When in scripture did the Word become the Son?
The definition for son is; he who receives life, or existence, from the Father.
The definition for Father is; he who gives life to the son.
If you have children, you are a Father; your children owe their existence to you.
Jesus did not receive life, was not brought into existence, when he was born of Mary.
John says, in the beginning was the Word; through the Word all things were created; the Word became flesh. John 1:1, 3, 14.
John referred to the son as the Word for at least two reasons;
One; in the old testament the son did not have a name.
Two; he was the spokesman for God;John 5:37 “…ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.”
John 8:28 “…I do nothing of myself; but as my Father has taught me, I speak these things.”
John 17:8 “For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me;…”
v. 14 “I have given them thy word;”Anywhere in the bible when “God” spoke, it was either the voice of the Word/Son, or of an angel.
Also, if the son did not receive his existence from the Father; then there is no Father and no son.
God bless
Hello Im4truth,So the Father had a BORN Son called the WORD before the existence of Jesus through Mary?
Where in the bible does it say this?
The Word became flesh. Is the Word here a Spiritual being?
The Word was the beginning of creation Rev. 3:14.
Is the Word a name for one of God's sons before draped in flesh becoming the first born Son of the Father?
IHN&L,
Ken
Hi Ken
NO, the Father had a son, and John referred to him as the word, and he is the only one to do so.
The name Jesus was given to him when he was born of Mary. Born means, brought into existence; he was born of Mary a flesh human being, but he was born, brought into existence as a spirit being long before then.Good talking with you Ken, and all; God bless
Ps. 2:7 “I will declare the decree: the LORD has said unto me, thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee.”
Hebrews is quoting this scripture in 1:5, in verse 6 we read;
v. 6 “And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world,…”
How can this to be understood to mean anything else, except what it says?
God gave his only begotten son, John 3:16;
God sent his son, John 3:17.
God could not have given us his son; God could not have sent us his son, had he not had a son.
And the “Word”, a title given only by John, was and is the son, Jesus.Yes, he was the beginning of God's creation, Rev. 3:14, because everything else was created by him, Col, 1:16.
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