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Hi E,
I am glad you are prepared to examine your beliefs according to the revealed truth. May the light shine for you.Quote (epistemaniac @ July 07 2005,05:32) Quote (Nick Hassan @ July 05 2005,06:07) Hi E,
Christ has divine nature as the Son of God.But in this verse he cannot be the God that establishes us in Christ surely? How can he both do the establishing and be 'the being' being established in at the same time?
quite simple really… the Son is not the Father….
Hi E,
True.The Father is not the Son.
But is the Son still part of an original “compound trinity God” in your view, meaning he was never truly separate as sons usually are?
Quote (epistemaniac @ July 07 2005,05:30) Quote (Cubes @ July 05 2005,17:49) Quote (epistemaniac @ July 05 2005,06:02) Quote (Nick Hassan @ July 05 2005,05:42) Hi,
2Cor 1.21
” Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge”So God is not Christ and Christ is not God.
fallacy alert!!!!! lol… you are creating a false dichotomy in your strained exegesis of the verse…“Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge”
this does not say that it is impossible that Christ be God simply because of the different activities being addressed here… God the Father, Yahweh, establishes and anoints His people in His Son, Christ Jesus, and Yahweh also gave us “the” Spirit in our hearts as a “pledge” or down payment… a seal that sets aside His people as His own, eternally so……. but there is absolutely nothing here that says that because of Yahweh's activities, it must logically follow that the Son cannot be God. Its not an either “God is not Christ and Christ is not God.” Its rather, the Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Son, this is the ONLY distinction being made.
btw… I should add, for clarification the above passage is not just 2 Cor. 1:21 but is rather 2 Cor. 1:21-22…
Hi Epistemaniac:Good to see you back.
To the extent that you can demonstrate that Christ DOES NOT receive from the Father, in that he [Jesus] is the source of the Life that is in him and all that he does, then you can establish that he is the same as the Most High God. You cannot do this scripturally, however, whereas the scriptures show that Christ comes from God and receives from God in all his past present and future manifestations. And for this reason as well as his own testimony, he is neither the Most High God or the same being as he.
I would not try to demonstrate that Christ DOES NOT receive from the Father, because He clearly does. He receives from the Father, so what? Is He the same as the most high God? Well He shares the same essence as the Father, if that’s what you mean. Jesus is called the mighty God however, and since there is only one God, only one true God, and it is inconceivable that Jesus should be a false God, then He must be God in the same sense as the Father is. (Isa 9:6 NNAS) “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”
So Cubes, is Jesus a false God or a true God?
Hi E,
So you say on the one hand that the Son is not the source, which is God the Father, but on the other hand that the Son is part of that source, joined to that source?If so there is no equality as a source must be greater than a recipient. The original is greater than an image.
Scripture says “for us there is one God…and one Lord Jesus Christ”
That differentiates between God and Jesus. It tells us Jesus is not that God spoken of but instead is our Lord who is under our God, and his God.
ps E,
So Is the trinity then not an equal trinity in your view?There is the greater Father\Source and the lesser Son\Recipient?
How can a being be part of another but not equal with that other?
Do you mean like a body where a head is greater than a hand?
Or a grapevine where the vine is greater than a branch?So is the Father the Head of your “Godhead”?
That is similar to the first version of trinity theory – an unequal binity.
Quote (Nick Hassan @ July 07 2005,23:35) ps E,
So Is the trinity then not an equal trinity in your view?There is the greater Father\Source and the lesser Son\Recipient?
How can a being be part of another but not equal with that other?
Do you mean like a body where a head is greater than a hand?
Or a grapevine where the vine is greater than a branch?So is the Father the Head of your “Godhead”?
That is similar to the first version of trinity theory – an unequal binity.
Nick, your questions just reveal your ongoing unwillingness to truly understand or represent Trinitarian beliefFor future reference, when you are referring to something I said, please be specific as to what it is EXACTLY that you are referring to.
When referring to what I said, you said that I say “on the one hand that the Son is not the source, which is God the Father, but on the other hand that the Son is part of that source”. Please quote me exactly as to where I said this, otherwise it is obvious you are just continuing to play your silly games and word twisting. So as to stop this ridiculous time wasting practice, just quote me, say what you think I am mean by what I said, and then once you have understood then you can ask questions based on reality, and not on your fanciful meanderings as to what you think I mean, as opposed to what I really in fact said. As it is, you spend far too much time building houses of cards, houses built on misunderstandings and either intentional or unintentional misrepresentations. Maybe you have the time for such nonsense, I don’t.
You ask “So Is the trinity then not an equal trinity in your view?”
I appreciate the forthrightness and clarity of this question Nick.The trinity is ontologically equal, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equal as to their nature, they are one God, and are therefore, at this level (ontologically) one and therefore equal.
Secondly, while the members of the Trinity are equal, they have differing roles in carrying out God’s designs in creation and redemption, this is simply what theologians call the “economic trinity”. The Bible says that the Son laid down His equality, not thinking it to be something to be grasped, and humbled Himself, even to the Cross. So it was not the Father humbling Himself and going to the Cross, it was the Son, it was not the Holy Spirit, etc.
Philippians 2:5-8 HNV Have this in your mind, which was also in Messiah Yeshua, (6) who, existing in the form of God, didn't consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, (7) but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. (8) And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, yes, the death of the cross.
or
Philippians 2:5-8 ESV Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, (6) who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, (7) but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (8) And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.Thus the ongoing difficulty the non-Trinitarian has in their thinking in terms of sayings like that of Jesus where He says that the Father is greater then He, well these can be simply and adequately understood by simply looking at the roles the members of the Trinity have in regard to one another in so far as their appointed roles, and the phrase “economic trinity” serves to help sort this out. That is, it will help those who are earnestly and honestly seeking to understand.
One of the biggest obstacles at this site seems to be that if there is an admission of understanding why the Trinitarian may believe as they do, that it has to entail some kind of agreement as well. The non-Trinitarian needs to get over this. Its fine to go ahead and accurately understand why the Trinitarian believes as they do, really… its fine… go ahead and try it. Understanding the “why” behind the Trinitarian’s belief does not… I repeat… DOES NOT for minute mean you have to agree!! Really!! Its that simple! All this ongoing nonsense about the Father being greater than the Son as if this is some obstacle to belief in Trinitarianism is absurd. Its sooo easy to understand, from within the Trinitarian theological view, how the Father and the Son can be ontologically equal while at the same time have differing roles where the Son places Himself under the authority of the Father, and that this particular aspect of their relationship does nothing to take away the fat that they are still equal in other ways, it is nothing short of astounding that the discussion can continue as if this relationship disproves the Trinity. One last thought on this…. My wife and I are completely equal in Christ before God. But this does not change the fact that we have differing relationships before God concerning our roles in the home. The husband, the father of the home, is responsible before God as the priest of his family, and in this sense, the husband has authority over the wife and children. But does this authority take anything wehasoever away from the ontological equality the members of the family have before the face of God? Absolutely not. So too with The Father and the Son. The Son’s relational position of being submissive to the Father takes absolutely nothing away from His ontological status of equality with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Fini.
Quote (epistemaniac @ July 07 2005,05:18) Quote (Cubes @ July 05 2005,17:50) Quote (epistemaniac @ July 05 2005,05:46) Thayers supports your view laureaus… from “begotten” in Jn 3:16,
G3439
μονογενής
monogenēs
Thayer Definition:
1) single of its kind, only
Who is Thayer? Has he any private revelation other than what is revealed in the Word?
ROFLOL!!! these kinds of responses are always soooo funny…. ok then…who is Cubes….? Has he any private revelation other than what is written in the Word?
here is another question for you Cubes… how many Greek lexicons have you written?
Hi Epistemanic,
I have not been approved to write scripture, that's for sure and would thank you not to consider my opinions with any authority.I haven't written any lexicons either, and I am not against lexicons at all, as long as they are not trying to interpret something authoritatively from which they have no standard.
We have only Jesus in association with “only begotten son” so I don't know how a lexicon derives its interpretation, having no other examples to go by, outside of scripture. So to the extent it concurs with scripture, we accept it. That's all:
We know that fathers beget their offspring.
We know that Jesus has a Father and was begotten; the only one that is begotten of the Father.
We also know that all things were made through him and through him they consist.This is what I see in the scriptures.
So that's the basis for my previous post.
Quote (epistemaniac @ July 07 2005,05:30) Quote (Cubes @ July 05 2005,17:49) Quote (epistemaniac @ July 05 2005,06:02) Quote (Nick Hassan @ July 05 2005,05:42) Hi,
2Cor 1.21
” Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge”So God is not Christ and Christ is not God.
fallacy alert!!!!! lol… you are creating a false dichotomy in your strained exegesis of the verse…“Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge”
this does not say that it is impossible that Christ be God simply because of the different activities being addressed here… God the Father, Yahweh, establishes and anoints His people in His Son, Christ Jesus, and Yahweh also gave us “the” Spirit in our hearts as a “pledge” or down payment… a seal that sets aside His people as His own, eternally so……. but there is absolutely nothing here that says that because of Yahweh's activities, it must logically follow that the Son cannot be God. Its not an either “God is not Christ and Christ is not God.” Its rather, the Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Son, this is the ONLY distinction being made.
btw… I should add, for clarification the above passage is not just 2 Cor. 1:21 but is rather 2 Cor. 1:21-22…
Hi Epistemaniac:Good to see you back.
To the extent that you can demonstrate that Christ DOES NOT receive from the Father, in that he [Jesus] is the source of the Life that is in him and all that he does, then you can establish that he is the same as the Most High God. You cannot do this scripturally, however, whereas the scriptures show that Christ comes from God and receives from God in all his past present and future manifestations. And for this reason as well as his own testimony, he is neither the Most High God or the same being as he.
I would not try to demonstrate that Christ DOES NOT receive from the Father, because He clearly does. He receives from the Father, so what? Is He the same as the most high God? Well He shares the same essence as the Father, if that’s what you mean. Jesus is called the mighty God however, and since there is only one God, only one true God, and it is inconceivable that Jesus should be a false God, then He must be God in the same sense as the Father is. (Isa 9:6 NNAS) “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”
So Cubes, is Jesus a false God or a true God?
Jesus is not a false God, but Mighty God is not Almighty God or Most High God or Highest. There should be no need to call the Father the Most High God if he was not the MOST.Consider it.
Also through the Holy Spirit, the children of God partake of his holy nature through his Son. So almost all things that are true of God are true of Christ and true of us to the degree that Christ is our head and we live by him as he lives by the Father.
HiE,
So it is not trinity theory itself that is the deepest issue. It is whether or not men have the right to teach what scripture does not reveal as if it did reveal these things.It shows a rebellious attitude to God and perhaps even contempt for the Word of God to take such steps.
That the first to do these things were 1800 years ago gives them no weight. We all must stand before the Judgement seat of God in some form ALONE. All the church leaders and theologians will not be there to back us up so why not cling to what is everlasting-the Word of God alone -NOW?
Quote (Cubes @ July 11 2005,03:24) Jesus is not a false God, but Mighty God is not Almighty God or Most High God or Highest. There should be no need to call the Father the Most High God if he was not the MOST. Consider it.
Also through the Holy Spirit, the children of God partake of his holy nature through his Son. So almost all things that are true of God are true of Christ and true of us to the degree that Christ is our head and we live by him as he lives by the Father.
So there are 2 true Gods? According to scripture there is only one.Hi L,
But you say the Son is a deity. We do not claim that as deities are worshipped. We worship the Father as the Son did and told us to do.Please answer the question Nick Hassan.
Hi L,
Scripture says
1Cor 8
” ..as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for US there is but ONE GOD, the Father…and ONE LORD, Jesus Christ.”
I have One God and One Lord.
How about you?So the Father isnt your Lord?
Good question, Laurreaus:
There is only one true God, the Father who is the Father and King of glory. His son is the Lord of glory. He made his Son Lord. So that's what you need to consider.
We, who are in Christ, are the actual Body of Christ. He is our head. And yet our glories differ though we are the true body of Christ. But we depend on him. He doesn't depend on us. He lives in us because he loves us, not that he has to.
1 Cor 15: 38 But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.
39 All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind *of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds.
40 There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory.Hi L,
When I obey my Lord I obey his Lord.
A soldier does not wait for the commander of the Army to give him personal instructions before he acts does he? He obeys the corporal who obeys the sargeant who obeys the warrant officer who obeys the General etc. and the work of the Commander gets done.Chain of command.
Quote (Guest @ July 11 2005,23:19) So the Father isnt your Lord?
Acts 2:36
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”So the Father is God and Jesus is Lord. This is what we teach.
There is one God the Father, whether you like it or not. Jesus was made Lord by God. Can you accept that?God the Father gave Yahshua Messiah the same glory He had laid aside before He came to be born of Mary and die for our sins. So Christ is as John says in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was that Word. The Same was in the Beginning with God.
Alot of unity that backs up Chist saying that “I and the Father are ONE”. He also said He was in the Father and the Father in Him.
So I suppose if you want to take scripture litterally – God the Father is the VESSEL of Christ Jesus.
Original Aramaic Peshitta:
John 1:1. In the beginning was the Miltha1. And that Miltha was with God. And God was that Miltha. 2. This was with God in the beginning. 3. Everything existed through His hands, and without Him, not even one thing existed of the things, which have existed.
1. “Miltha” has no direct English equivalent. It can mean “Word”, “Manifestation”, “Instance” or “Substance” , among many other things. In this context, it may be best left untranslated.
One of the Reasons the Trinity Doctrine formed was because the majority of christendom centered all attention in the salvation of man and shunned the biblical doctrine of the Ransom. Jesus himself said concerning one of the reasons he was sent to Earth, “Just as the Son of man came, not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his soul a ransom in exchange for many.” (Matthew 20:28).
Here, Jesus was talking to his disciples, who were Jewish and knew the Law of Moses. Why did Jesus use the word ransom when he could have said, “I came to save mankind”? The greek word for ransom is ly-tron, and the hebrew ko-fer means “to cover, a correspondent price, and exact price, an exact covering”. The Jews knew all to well what ransom meant. The Law of Moses, which was a shadow of greater things to come, contained that principle of exact price or covering price (a ransom). Please, read it in Exodus 21:23-25. Do you see it? Soul for Soul (or as other traductions have it, Life for a Life).
Jesus was to be a ransom. For who? Adam. Adam was a perfect human with the perspective of eternal life, if he remained obedient to God. But he sinned, and Adam, Eve, and their posterity were sentenced to death. Death entered the world for the sin of one man (Romans 5:12). A perfect life was lost, and had to be restored. But who could pay such a price? Not one of Adam's children could cover such a price.
Interesting are the words found in Psalm 49:7,8, “Not one of them can by any means redeem even a brother, nor give God a ransom for him. And the redemption price of their soul is so precious that it has ceased to time indefinite.”
So, if a ransom, a corresponding and exact price was to be paid to satisfy God's justice (For Justice, one of the main attributes of God is ever present in all his acts) a perfect man had to die. No more, no less. Adam, a perfect man had brought death, and only a perfect man could lift such burden from the neck of us, sinners sentenced to death.
The belief of a God-Man, which is not found is scripture, gave foot to the belief of the Trinity. Jesus was sent by God, for he had lived in heavens before coming to Earth. But he was sent as a perfect man, not a 100%God-100%Man creature. He was a man, nothing more, nothing less. Perfect, for he never sinned (not in thought, acts, words). To be the “ransom for many” he had to be a perfect human being, as Adam was. NOT NEVER A GOD-MAN. That is why Paul said that Adam bore a resemblance of the one to come. A resemblance, for Adam never lived in Heaven, nor was resurrected as Jesus was.
The fact is that when the Athanasian Creed was written, it relied too much on pagan Greek philosophy. The use of Platonic terms and words to explain something that, if were the truth, could be explained just in base of sola scriptura (JUST THE BIBLE IN PLAIN ENGLISH) shows the pagan roots to this belief.
Jesus said that eternal life came from knowing the only true God and Jesus, whom he had sent (John 17:3). How can anyone attain eternal life is somethings as fundamental as God's Person is too complicated and ilogical for even theologians to explain, much less for the simple person? The terms GOD THE SON and GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT do not appear in scripture. All came from weaving greek philosophy with man made doctrines.
Jesus, the Son of God, the Mighty God (El-Guibbor and not EL SHADDAI or Almighty God) was a spirit, sent to Earth as a perfect man, not a MAN-GOD being, to be a ransom for what Adam lost, a perfect human life, and was resurrected by GOD, JEHOVAH, HIS FATHER, given the name above all names for the Glory of GOD THE FATHER. (SEE, TWO DISTINCT PERSONS)
I hope this clears some doubts concerning what the BIBLE says about who Jesus was.
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