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Jesus is the Word of God. The Word came in the flesh and that is who Jesus is. God didn't come in the flesh. Not even the heavens can contain God and God was certainly not a man.
It was Jesus who came in the flesh. To preach something contrary to that is antichrist.
But have you ever wondered why the article is used in John 1:1a-b and not in c?
The article is used for the Word and for God. But not in the part that Trinitarians say proves that Jesus is God himself. Kind of ironic don't you think, that the one verse that the Trinity hinges on more than any other is actually not constructed like the others in John 1:1.
You cannot teach that Jesus is God based on John 1:1c. You can say that God is God and the Word came from God, but you cannot say using John 1:1c that the Word is God himself. If you do, it is an opinion and not a clear teaching of scripture.
What people forget is that there are many gods and that even God is a god. It just happens that he is the Most High God.
As said before many times. If you knew the difference between God and his nature, you wouldn't fall for this Babylonian doctrine.
Quote But have you ever wondered why the article is used in John 1:1a-b and not in c?
Read the post again. Carefully this time. And think things through next time.To Is 1:18,
Quote (Is 1:18 @ Nov. 15 2005,02:02) If the Greek article occurred with both Word and God in John 1:1, the implication would be that they are one and the same person, absolutely identical. But John affirmed that “the Word was with (the) God” (the definite article preceding each noun), and in so writing, he indicated his belief that they are distinct and separate personalities. Then John next stated that the Word was God, i.e., of the same family or essence that characterizes the Creator. Or, in other words, that both are of the same nature, and that nature is the highest in existence, namely divine…. The apostle John, in the context of the introduction to his Gospel, is pulling all the stops out of language to portray not only the deity of Christ, but also his equality with the Father. He states that the Word was in the beginning, that He was with God, that He was God and that all creation came into existence through him and that not even one thing exists that was not created by Christ. What else could be said that John did not say?
But John affirmed that “the Word was with (the) God” (the definite article preceding each noun), and in so writing, he indicated his belief that they are distinct and separate personalities. Then John next stated that the Word was God, i.e., of the same family or essence that characterizes the Creator. Or, in other words, that both are of the same nature, and that nature is the highest in existence, namely divine….Precisely what we have been saying all along, except for the “nature is the highest in existence” part.
Christ is not identified as God (HE) rather that Christ is identified as having God's nature. So Jesus is like God. He is the image of God. He has God's nature. But he is not God himself. He was with God and from God, but he is not God himself.
Also if John 1:1c was saying that the Word was God (Himself) then that would mean that Jesus was exclusively God as God is identified using the article. So it doesn't make sense to say that Jesus is the God , (even ignoring that he was with this God, 1 part-verse back).
E.g.,
(1) Father
(2) Joe
In the year 19?? there was Joe (2), Joe was with his Father, (1) and Joe was like his Father (1). If I say that Joe was his Father, then Joe would be the Father exclusively. Therefore (1) is actually (2) and Joe's Father (1) would not be the Father (1).It is obvious for a number of reasons that 'theos' in verse John 1:1c is talking of nature/divinity and not about God himself.
Let's face it Is 1:18, you have a father and mother and you share some things like DNA and even nature in common with them. But Christ came from one God and from God only. He has only that which comes from his Father. He is FROM God and that is why he is 'the image of God'. He is not the source.
Jesus has the nature of God. Jesus is a divine being, but he is not God himself with whom that nature originates. You will see throughout scripture that Jesus is the recipient and God is the giver. Even his life came from God and God is the source of all that Christ has.
John 5:26
For as the Father has life in himself, so he has GRANTED the Son to have life in himself.Likewise our life comes from God but through Christ, yet even though his life is in us, we are not Christ in person, rather we have his nature and we will be LIKE him.
1 John 5:11
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.1 John 3:2
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.If we understand the difference between nature and personality, then we shouldn't be fooled by the wisdom of man under the guise of the Trinity doctrine.
To Is 1:18,
Quote (Is 1:18 @ Nov. 15 2005,02:51) Quote But have you ever wondered why the article is used in John 1:1a-b and not in c?
Read the post again. Carefully this time. And think things through next time.
No amount of repititon and Greek philosophy makes it correct. It is different in a & b for a reason that you refuse to understand. You teach it as though it were like a & b, when the sentence construction is not.There are plenty of examples where the lack of the article shows a quality rather than the person.
E.g., “John is the man,”. This identifies John with a definite and particular person of the human race; but if I omit the definite article and say “John is man,” then I do not identify him, I classify him. I say “John is human; he belongs to the sphere/nature of man.” To understand this further, take a look at John 6:70. When speaking of his betrayer Judas Iscariot, Jesus said, “One of you is a devil.” Did Jesus mean that Judas is actually Satan the Devil? No! He merely meant to say that Judas is like (class) a devil, or that he has the qualities or nature of a/the devil. The word “devil” here has no article in the Greek, but most translators deem it necessary to add the “a” to complete the thought. So Judas was diabolical, like the Devil. He had the qualities of the Devil. But that doesn't rule out that Satan is the Devil because it is not saying that Judas was the actual Devil.
Rather Judas thought as the Devil; and acted as the Devil. He was not the Devil (definite), (Satan is); he was not an actual devil (indefinite), he was a devil (qualitative). He was one who had the mental disposition, the nature, of the Devil, Satan. If a definite meaning were desired the word order would be, 'is the devil'; if an indefinite meaning were desired the word order would be, 'is devil'. Since the word order is, 'devil is', and a form of “I am” comes after the noun, the meaning is qualitative, as it is in John 1:1c.
To Is 1:18,
Quote (Is 1:18 @ Nov. 15 2005,02:02) and that nature is the highest in existence, namely divine….
The highest nature, yes. But not greater than God himself.God's nature comes from himself and he shares that nature with his son and even us.
The Trinity doctrine appears to teach that this nature (god in John 1:1c) spawns 2 personalities, (John 1:1a & John 1:1b), (but changed to 3 personalties a few decades later after some debate).
But it is God (HE) that has a nature. It is not nature that has a personality or personalities. Which is greater? God or his nature?
God of course. For God is the source of divine nature. Not the other way around.
God has divine nature and it is not divine nature that spawns a God-person. New Age too, seeks to reduce God to a force or a nature, why do the same? New Age is also Babylonian in nature. Babylon is the mother of false religion.
Come out of her my people.
Quote (t8 @ Nov. 14 2005,09:11) The Word was divine. John 1:1c. Jesus is the son. “Son' is a noun.
Have I passed your test?
No, t8, you didn't. The title “son” tells me nothing about His ontology. Try again.Quote So since an article with “theos” would have forced a fully reversible statement (Jesus is God AND God is Jesus) we know that John could NOT have legitimately used the article in John 1:1c without affirming a Sabellianism (or modalism)! Hi all,
Jesus taught us all about his Father. He told us he was the son of that Father.I think we should believe him don't you? Otherwise all he has taught us about his Father and their relationship becomes a nonsense does it not?When you are trained into trinity doctrine you are taught to read betwen the lines What you seem to discover there is not written as direct teaching but derived understandings only. This leads to a sense of intellectual triumph. You can see what others cannot.
That means you can seem to claim greater wisdom Then it seems that those who refuse to accept what you have found as fully equivalent to the direct teaching of scripture are scorned. It is common for contempt to be poured out here on those who want direct proof of this theory from scripture.
But to come to this conclusion you have to raise human understanding above direct revelation. That is dangerous ground. It leads to the vain and dangerous analysis of God by the simple minds of his creatures.
Quote (Is 1:18 @ Nov. 14 2005,18:13) Quote (t8 @ Nov. 14 2005,09:11) The Word was divine. John 1:1c. Jesus is the son. “Son' is a noun.
Have I passed your test?
No, t8, you didn't. The title “son” tells me nothing about His ontology. Try again.
Hi Is 1.18
“son” is not a title. It is a statement of fact. It is a statement of origin.
Adam is said to be a son of God. Was that just a title?
Are all the sons spoken of in the bible only such by appointed title? When did the Son of God receive this bizarre empty title? Was in in recognition of his behaviours?It changes the meaning of the word 'son' to something unnatural and unbiblical. Why is this necessary? Do you not believe he actually is the Son of God? He said he was.
Are we not all sons of our own fathers or are they just titles too?
Sorry Is 1:18, I’ve been away. First, I commend your zeal, for you seem quite a bit more organized in your thoughts than most people. You have “installments.” Impressive.
It does bother me that you repeatedly are ignoring my very simple question of:
What does your Bible NASB or any Bible you own say at places such as: John 6:70, Acts 28:6, Mark 6:49, etc?
Your closest thing to a response was to mention that there was “a minor textual anomaly” in the NASB Bible. What you must have meant was: ‘They and the vast majority of Bible translators in this world under Satan’s control have chosen to insert the letter “a” before the word “god” or “devil” (slanderer) or “spirit” in these instances, yet for some reason there is an anomaly at John 1:1 where they chose to leave the “a” out.’
Is that what you meant by “textual anomaly”? Why does your Bible NASB choose to insert the indefinite article in places such as John 6:70 where the grammatical structure is the same as John 1:1 and yet do not insert the indefinite article at John 1:1? These questions must be troubling, for why else would you have repeatedly ignored them.david.
Nick, glad to see you're back.Now that this has been said, to what your first installment said:
(I have yet to read the second)Considering that John 1:1, (or at least, your understanding of it) is basically all you have in defending your belief, whereas I have the rest of the Bible, I understand your time spent with this one particular uncertain passage. And I understand the desperate need of yours to be proven right on this one passage. It is a scary place to be in. But you are holding up well. Again, I commend your bravery.
My First Observation: It seems like you are attacking Jehovah’s Witnesses position on the trinity rather than looking at the trinity/not trinity issue or looking at John 1:1 itself. There are others, albeit few, who know the trinity for what it is. This website is proof of that. Knowing that Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t very well liked by the world, as the early Christians weren’t, it shouldn’t come as a grand surprise that these attacks exist.
Saying: “you are wrong because you are not scholarly” is a bad argument. Yes, in your eyes, the ones who translated our Bible probably are considered “unlettered and ordinary,” even as Peter and John were considered by those who had training in Rabbinic study. (Acts 4:13) But as the Bible reveals: “God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put the wise men to shame.” He has “hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to babes.” (1 Cor 1:27; Mt 11:25)As well, it should be stated that most everyone I’ve ever encountered that has ‘charged’ me of not believing in the trinity, has began by mentioning John 1:1, as if it’s the holy grail of the trinity belief. I have never said that Jesus should not be called God, as he is called Mighty God in scripture. It is most definitely befitting him. If human judges, angels, and satan could be called gods, then most definitely, Jesus, could as well. But he must be distinguished from Jehovah, who is described as Almighty God. “Almighty” applying to Jehovah 48 times. Only Jehovah is called Almighty.
1. Verifiable proof that all scholars with tangible influence on the translations of the various versions that rendered John 1:1c as “the word was God” had a trinitarian bias.
2. Verifiable proof that these scholars chose to superimpose their bias on the text and misrepresent what John had actually written, in the context it was written.
3. Verifiable proof that the NWT translators were comparitively unbiased in their methodology.1. So you want me to go through the hundreds of scholars that translated those Bibles and show that they had a trinitarian bias. Hmmm. I’ll try.
“The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” Satan is “misleading the entire inhabited earth.” He is described as the “ruler of the world” at least three times in scripture. He is the “god of this system of things” and has blinded men’s minds. Clearly, Satan has considerable influence, over the whole world. All of mankind who are a part of the world and it’s ways come under his influence to some degree. Only those who are separate from the world and “no part of the world,” as Jesus and his followers were don’t really come under his influence.
There was an apostasy that was beginning even before the apostles had died off. This was foretold by Jesus and others. It took quite some time to formalize the trinity doctrine. Once it became established, there was really nothing to stop it. While I can’t prove that each of those scholars was biased, (well, I might be able to prove it, but it would take 10's of thousands of hours of research) I can show that some were definitely biased.You point to the KING JAMES VERSION as having the most scholars. Is that a good thing? How did they do? Did their number of scholars help them to be unbiased?
This is how my Bible translates 1 John 1:7,8:
“7 For there are three witness bearers, 8 the spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are in agreement.”Yet, for centuries, scholars inserted some words that really had no right being there:
“For there are three that bear witness [in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit:and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth:] the spirit, the water and the blood: and these three agree as one.”
This spurious trinitarian addition is usually called the “comma Johanneum.”It is omitted by the American Standard Version, An American Translation, English Revised Version, Moffatt, New English Bible, Phillips, Rotherham, Revised Standard Version, Schonfield, Wade, Wand, Weymouth, etc, etc, etc.
The words which are interpolated in the common Greek text in this passage offer an instructive illustration of how the minds of scholars work.
An interesting survey made some years ago of 258 Latin Bible manuscripts in the National Library of Paris showed the progressive absorption of this interpolation through the centuries.
Number omitting
Century the interpolation
9th 7 out of 10, or 70%
10th 3 out of 4, or 75%
11th 3 out of 5, or 60%
12th 2 out of 15, or 13%
13th 5 out of 118, or 4%
14th-16th 1 out of 106, or 1%In the 18th century, doubts began to rise. But still in the 20th century, Catholics didn’t want to let go. To make this clear: At no time was there any reason for this verse to be there.
In brief summary the words of that well-known textual critic F. H. A. Scrivener can be quoted: “We need not hesitate to declare our conviction that the disputed words were not written by St. John: that they were originally brought into Latin copies in Africa from the margin, where they had been placed as a pious and orthodox gloss on ver. 8: that from the Latin they crept into two or three late Greek codices, and thence into the printed Greek text, a place to which they had no rightful claim.”–A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament by F. H. A. Scrivener, 4th edition, 1894, volume 2, page 407.
Did those words have any right at all at being there? No. Centuries of trinitarinistic scholars all living in Satan’s world, all not questioning. It’s what they wanted to believe, for it is what they believed.Again, Is 1:18, I can’t show that every scholar had a trinitarian bias.
It’s clear that through time, many did have such a bias (the ones that for centuries of translating insserted this spurious verse for example without looking into it). Many didn’t care enough to go against what everyone believed or was supposed to believe. So it is with higher learning. You don’t become a professor or get grants or publish unless you teach evolution. You aren’t taken seriously and will never join their club unless you think as they do. So, the only ones that are professors in biology are the ones who teach evolution. And that’s what they teach to everyone. And so the cycle goes.
I can’t show one by one whether those scholars were biased. But these words hold true: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” Were those scholars a part of the world? The early Christians didn’t vote, go to war, were neutral, didn’t get involved in politics, were separate from worldly ways and the influences of the world’s thinking. Were those scholars “no part of the world,” as Jesus said his followers would be? If they were a part of the world, what does that mean?2. See number 1.
3. They were definitely comparatively unbiased. You need only look at their history. Jehovah’s Witnesses didn’t establish a belief system and then do everything in their power to hold
to them. On the contrary, we used to celebrate Christmas, birthdays, used to have cross symbols, were unsure about issue of neutrality, used to smoke, etc, etc. It’s quite a long list really. Certain doctrines have been changed over the years or clarified. The humble willingness to make changes indicates that the Jehovah’s Witnesses didn’t start with a set of beliefs and then do everything in their power to hold on to them. Quite the contrary. Like the early disciples who asked if Jesus was restoring the kingdom to Israel at that time, Jehovah’s Witnesses have not always been on the mark, but they have always held to God’s word, whether it matched their earlier beliefs or not.
*“Here is Mantey’s response:
Since my name is used and our Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament is quoted on page 744 to seek to justify their translation, I am making this statement… of all the scholars in the world, as far as we know none have translated this verse as Jehovah’s Witnesses have done.”Yes, Jehovah’s Witnesses are quite unique when compared to the rest of the world lying in Satan’s power, even as Jesus’ followers were.
I would like to again say that it would be better to look at the trinity doctrine itself rather than trying to dissect the ones who believe it.
david.
I really wanted a break from this. Nick. I am very glad that you’re back and well. I was sort of wanting some time off from this forum though. But someone asks a question…..Quote (david @ Nov. 15 2005,05:52) Sorry Is 1:18, I’ve been away. First, I commend your zeal, for you seem quite a bit more organized in your thoughts than most people. You have “installments.” Impressive.
It does bother me that you repeatedly are ignoring my very simple question of:
What does your Bible NASB or any Bible you own say at places such as: John 6:70, Acts 28:6, Mark 6:49, etc?
Your closest thing to a response was to mention that there was “a minor textual anomaly” in the NASB Bible. What you must have meant was: ‘They and the vast majority of Bible translators in this world under Satan’s control have chosen to insert the letter “a” before the word “god” or “devil” (slanderer) or “spirit” in these instances, yet for some reason there is an anomaly at John 1:1 where they chose to leave the “a” out.’
Is that what you meant by “textual anomaly”? Why does your Bible NASB choose to insert the indefinite article in places such as John 6:70 where the grammatical structure is the same as John 1:1 and yet do not insert the indefinite article at John 1:1? These questions must be troubling, for why else would you have repeatedly ignored them.david.
Nick, glad to see you're back.
Hi David,
Happy to discuss this after my last John 1:1 Post.God Bless.
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