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[Elisha]

Re Matthew 28:19

Further evidence for the reading “in my name” is that in every record in the Book of Acts, the apostles baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, not in the name of the the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.

This bolsters the argument that Eusebius must have had access to earlier, more accurate manuscripts.

[Elisha]

To What is True –

Excellent point, we should be able to let the scriptures speak, and the words should fit and not contradict. Here are what the scriptures say about God and His Son – in plain English.

Would it not be wiser to cling to the plain texts instead of the few unclear verses?

Deuteronomy 18: 15-19

“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die. The LORD said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account.”

Matthew 16:13ff

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.

Mark 12: 28ff

“One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'There is no commandment greater than these.”
“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.”

John 5 :44

”How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the one and only God ?”

John 17:3

”Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

John 20:30 -31

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Acts 10:38

“How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”

1 Corinthians 8: 1-7

”Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God. So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. But not everyone knows this.”

Galatians 3: 19-20

”What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.”

I Timothy 2: 3-7

“This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men–the testimony given in its proper time. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle–I am telling the truth, I am not lying–and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.”

Revelation 3:11ff

“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

[Elisha]

Message of Salvation,

Thanks for your welcome and your points, which have merit. Many times hatred issues from frustration or fear. It can be difficult to not respond in kind, and return evil for evil. I have suffered persecution at times, as you have, for speaking the truth…..many times from other Christians who welcomed me as a brother, and then turned on me when we disagreed on doctrine. We have to remember that Christ foretold that there would come a time when men would seek to kill others, and think they were doing God a service. As if hating or killing another person could ever fit with Jesus words.  This is all the work of Satan.

At all times we should remember that a servant of the Lord does not strive, or get caught up in acrimonious conversation. If someone disagrees, that's never a problem for me, since I don't agree with everyone else on all points of doctrine. The only issue I ever have with people is when I sense they are not really seeking truth, rather seeking to defend their doctrine at all costs. I don't sense that in Is 1:18, I just sense that he has issues and questions about what we believe, and that's why I welcome discussion with him, and call him a brother, as I do you.

Blessings,

Elisha

[Elisha]

Hi again Is 1:18

Thanks for your kind words, and your encouragement. I have always endeavored to speak the truth in love, and without a partisan spirit. I sense other brothers and sisters on this Board feel the same way, although we don’t always agree. I believe you are searching with a sincere heart, and no one here expects you to just read, and believe. There is a process. For many of us, it took years before the truth became obvious to us, for others, it may have come more quickly. The more time we spend “investing” in a doctrine or belief, and in particular if we’ve ever preached or taught on it, the harder it is to accept or even consider an opposing viewpoint. Nevertheless, God expects nothing less from us, that we would contend for the faith that once delivered to the saints, as Jesus’ own half-brother Jude exhorted us all. If it was necessary to contend 1900 years ago, how much more now???

Now I’d like to address two points you raised –

First, why is it to Satan’s advantage that we believe Jesus is God?

The answer is that we take worship which belongs to the Father alone, and direct it to a created being. Yes, it is true that Jesus was worshipped, but not as God, with a capital G. He was worshipped as the Messiah, the King of Israel. So Satan draws worship away from Yahweh and directs it to the Son, or to the Trinity itself. This breaks the 1st and great commandment, which Jesus himself affirmed to a scribe. If Jesus were God, why didn’t he use that opportunity to introduce that new concept or idea to the people? Instead, he strictly adhered to Old Testament monotheism. He also said many times that if we loved him, we would obey his teaching (doctrine, words). Therefore, the test, if you will, of our love, is when false doctrines draw us away from the commandments of God or Jesus Christ, and we are tempted to please men, and conform to creeds, so as to “get along and fit in”. It is impossible to fit Jesus creed with the doctrine of the Trinity. We must choose between them. Now many times God makes allowance for our imperfect understanding, because is He didn’t, nothing would get done, since we are all works in progress, and to a degree, we all see thru a glass darkly. Nevertheless, when we have the words of Jesus, we are obligated to obey them. God winked at Paul’s disobedience because he did certain things ignorantly in unbelief. Yet there comes a time when God expects us to grow up in all things, and having received the truth, we must choose to obey at that point. God is the judge of those things, not men.

Secondly, you asked “when did Jesus say unequivocally that he is not God?”

I answer with these verses –

Matthew 19: 17
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

Mark 10:18
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

Luke 18: 18-19  
And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?   And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.

The same words of Jesus, the same record, are preserved in all three Synoptic gospels.  So does John set aside Jesus own words, and introduce a Jesus who was fully man, but also fully God?

What was the purpose of John’s Gospel?  

John wrote his Gospel, as he tells us, with one primary purpose: to convince his readers that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of God” (20:31). We should listen to John and allow his own words to resonate with our spirit. According to John, Jesus distinguished himself from the Father who is “the only true God” (see John17:3; also 5:44 and 6:27). Therefore if we could find in John’s Gospel a proof that Jesus is “coequal” with God, in the Trinitarian sense, we would be discovering something which John did not intend and, in view of his Jewish heritage, he would not have understood. Alternatively, did John introduce a new portrait of the Messiah which contradicted not only the Synoptic Gospels and the Old Testament, but  John’s (and Jesus’) own insistence that only the Father is truly God? (John 5:44; 17:3).

Please consider that when the apostles and early Christians sought to substantiate Jesus’ claim to Messiahship they often quoted Deuteronomy 18:18:

“I will raise up a Prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put my words into his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him.”

Both Peter (Acts 3:22) and Stephen (Acts 7:37) used this scripture to show that Jesus was “that promised prophet” (John 6:14), whose origin would be in an Israelite family and whose function would be similar to that of Moses. In Jesus, God had raised up the Messiah, the long-promised divine spokesman, the Savior of Israel and the world. In Peter’s words, “God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways” (Acts 3:26).

Now in Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s accounts we are told that Jesus confirmed and adhered to the absolute monotheism of the Old Testament (Mark 12:28-34). So did he therefore, (according to John), muddy the waters by claiming after all that to be God? Again, look at the recorded words of Jesus. Was Jesus a Trinitarian? The answer is in John 10:34-36 where Jesus compared himself to human agents of God in the Old Testament. Jesus gave this account of himself in explanation of what it means to be “one with the Father” (10:30). The Son perfectly represented the Father, as his divinely appointed agent. It is a oneness of function. That is exactly the Old Testament ideal of sonship. It had been imperfectly realized in all the rulers of Israel, but it would finally find fulfillment in the Messiah, God’s chosen King.

The argument in John 10:29-38 went like this: Jesus began by claiming that he and the Father were “one.” It was a oneness of fellowship and function which on another occasion he desired also for his disciples’ to have with him and the Father (John 17:11, 22). The Jews misunderstood him to be claiming equality with God. This gave Jesus an opportunity to explain himself. What he was actually claiming, so he says, was to be “Son of God” (v. 36), a recognized synonym for Messiah. His claim to sonship was not unreasonable, Jesus argued, in view of the well-known fact that even imperfect representatives of God had been addressed by Him in the Old Testament as “gods” (Ps. 82:6). He was not establishing any claim to eternal Sonship, instead he compared his office and function to that of the judges.

There’s nothing in Jesus’ account of himself which contradicts Old Testament monotheism or requires us to rewrite the text in Deuteronomy 6:4. Jesus understanding and testimony about his own person is strictly within the limits laid down by God’s revelation in Scripture. All scripture….including the 70% of our Bibles that is the Old Testament. If it were otherwise, Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah would have been without basis, and the Scriptures would have been broken. He had to fulfill the portrait of the Messiah given in the Old Testament, and no one ever interpreted that portrait as Trinitarians do. The portrait is of a man approved of God, divinely appointed to sit on David’s throne, and given power and authority to work miracles and forgive sins. All of these things were given to Jesus by the only true God, his Father.

Until we speak again, peace, and blessings to you Is 1:18 –

Elisha

[Elisha]

Is. 1:18

I think sometimes we all get a little impatient when it comes right down to it. I give you credit for sticking around to post and talk to others who differ in their beliefs. Many of us have experienced hatred and persecution from trinitarians who thought they were doing God a service. Perhaps MOS has as well. I can't speak for him, but at times I've gotten angry at what I perceive to be a double standard and persecution for speaking the truth. It's tough to be a witness for God in an evil world, tougher still when the persecution comes from those who say they are your brothers or sisters until they find out you differ on this one doctrine.  Many of us have been told we're not welcome anymore in churches we attended and told we're of the anti-christ. We see scriptures like John 17:3 and other clear simple statements by the Lord blatantly ignored and we wonder why others can't see what Satan is doing. He is blindly people to Jesus own words, and yet didn't Jesus say that if we call him Lord, we should obey his words? Doesn't it concern you that the foundational doctrine of the christian church contradicts the plain words of scripture and holds the words of Jesus to be of less importance? I've been told I'm not really a Christian and couldn't be a member of a church and vote or hold office as a deacon or elder unless I confessed Jesus as God with a capital G. Does this mean Jesus wouldn't be welcome in that church as well? The head of the Church not welcome as a member in a church that named itself for him??? This is not to question your sincerity, but many of us have pondered and asked ourselves the significance of these questions. However, I've yet to find a trinitarian that will ask themself the same questions and ponder the consequence of being wrong, and yet the scripture says clearly that those who run ahead and don't hold to the teaching of Christ have neither the Father or the Son. Doesn't that trouble you in the least? Or do you believe that so many couldn't possibly be wrong?

In Christ,

Elisha

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