If Jesus is divine, does that make him God?

God’s nature is divine his essence is spirit

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

Divine nature pertaining to Jesus Christ and the children of God

But scripture says that we can share in God’s nature so all the more Jesus Christ who after all has a body now, that we will eventually have. It is written that we will be like him. If Jesus Christ is God because he has divine nature, then why aren’t we God by reason of participating in the same divine nature?

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Connecting the dots, most will agree that we are not God and never will we be God. So divine nature doesn’t qualify you as being God himself.

Was Jesus God or a man?

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus existing in the form of God doesn’t make him God, rather that his nature is from God. A good explanation of a son of God. We also read that Jesus emptied himself, but of what did he empty himself? Many think it was his foreknowledge and divine nature because he took on flesh or human nature and became a man being born like us. He started life as a baby, grew to a child, then an adult. We do know right now that Jesus is at the right-hand of God in the glory he had with him even before creation itself. So it seems he was with God, came to Earth in an empty state, and is back with God in the glory he had with him before the universe existed.

And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

Conclusion

Divine nature doesn’t make you God just as having a spirit doesn’t make you God. Yes God is divine, and He is spirit. But angels are spirits and they are not God and we can share in divine nature and we are not God. What we do know is this:

Jesus Christ existed with God before the world began as the Word. While he shared in divine nature with God, he emptied himself and became a man, even a baby who had to learn how to walk and talk like the rest of us. Providing the perfect sacrifice for our sins through his death, he is now with God at his righthand side in the glory he had with him before the world began. Now we who are in the flesh can be born of the Spirit and participate in this divine nature because Christ died for us.

We need to understand that there is a difference between being God who has divine nature and being a son who shares or inherits divine nature. Receiving the divine nature of God is a good description of being a son and chief among the sons of God is the Son of God himself. He reflects the fullness of God’s nature and glory in visible form from the invisible God.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.


Discussion

Viewing 20 posts - 201 through 220 (of 448 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #799956
    DavidL
    Participant

    SEEING in your heart the reality of Jesus, through the inspired Word – (as opposed to the shifting sands of theological interpretation).

    #799967
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi davidl,

    You offer another Jesus.

    Your Jesus is not in scripture.

    2Cor 11.4

    #800028
    DavidL
    Participant

    Well I’m really gutted by your amazing insight…!!

    #800033
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi davidl,

    Polytheism is not OK.

    Jesus worshiped the God we worship.

    #800102
    Proclaimer
    Participant

    @DavidL

    SEEING in your heart the reality of Jesus, through the inspired Word – (as opposed to the shifting sands of theological interpretation).

    Here is the rock that Jesus built HIS Church on.

    Matthew 16:13-18
    13 Jesus came into the country of Caesarea Philippi. He asked His followers, “Who do people say that I, the Son of Man, am?”
    14 They said, “Some say You are John the Baptist and some say Elijah and others say Jeremiah or one of the early preachers.”

    15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
    16 Simon Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

    17 Jesus said to him, “Simon, son of Jonah, you are happy because you did not learn this from man. My Father in heaven has shown you this.
    18 “And I tell you that you are Peter. On this rock I will build My church. The powers of hell will not be able to have power over My church.

    Read the above clearly DavidL. Jesus did not build his Church on Peter. He built it on the truth that Peter spoke concerning the true identity of Jesus Christ. And what was that truth? That Jesus is the Son of God and the Christ.

    Yet you challenge this in every sense of the word. Peter did not say that Jesus was God, yet that is your foundation. When I say that Jesus is the Son of God and Christ, that is not enough for you, so you like the Gates of Hell try to attack this truth with your own interpretations.

    But for what benefit is there to attack the true foundation of the Church, the Body of Christ?

    Here is the thing. Catholics believe that the foundation was Peter and this is where the line of Popes come from. They also believe that the foundation of their faith is the Trinity Doctrine. Not only are they wrong, but their fruit over the centuries proves that their tree is not good.

    So which is it DavidL? The Catholic faith or the true faith?

    You side mostly with the Catholic faith. That faith and their foundation cannot sustain any work that is built on her.

    For they labour in vain those who build on another foundation.

    #811563

    Jesus who is called the Son of God has other names and He shares all these names with God the Father as we read in Isaiah 9: 6 “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

    All these discussion on Heaven Net are trying to pry apart the Godhead like Biology students dissecting a frog. Simply because the writers do not understand that while Jesus and the Father used the very same names at times they were two distinct entities. Though one in purpose each had a role to perform. Those writers are like Philip. They read about God but do not seem to really know Him and understand how one could be the Father and the other one could be the Son. Both were and are God from eternity past to the future. Yes, they have different names because they are two. Yet, they are one as no human could ever understand as each of us are so independent and carnal.

    John 14: 9Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.

    Read the rest of John 14 and accept the fact that Jesus is God and so is the one we call the Father who is also God not because I wrote this but because that is what the Word of God clearly states to those who will read it and not twist its meaning to say otherwise.

    Richard of Decatur

    #811565
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi Richard,

    He said he is the Son of God.

    He said he was in the Father and the Father was in him.

     

    But you say he IS God.

    Whom should we believe?

    #811573
    NickHassan
    Participant

    Hi Richard,

    Yes.

    Other names

    Yashua-God saves

    Emmanuel- God with us.

     

    You see it is all about God and his work through obedient human vessels.

    Some get confused and think it is all about men.

    #863322
    Boomerang
    Participant

    I think the problem is.. we think..too much. We try to capture to understand God and Jesus.  It does bother me trying to figure out the relationship between Jesus and God .. Son and Father.  I pray each day that God help my unbelief my inability to understand or comprehend.

    We believe God existed before creation..however that is accomplished.  The Word of God also existed..as your words exist..before they are spoken. Are they separate beings? No.  Are they not a part of your essence, somehow, are they not spoken with your breath?  Your words do they not carry your intent? Your will? Express your innermost thought.. are they not more of you then even a piece of pottery or other created thing.. This IMHO is Jesus relation to the father..yes he existed before all..yes its by Him all things are created for he is the Word the essence the will of God..Yes by the will (effort in some way) Jesus was born of a virgin lived and died..and was risen.. and now in his glorified body sets at the right hand of the Father.. whatever that means in the heavenly realm.

    We do our best here..what we cant forget is the day we encountered Christ.  The Trinity was not even part of our discussion.. we were beggars, sick, cast aside, addicted, lost — Sinful and we encountered Christ. We know what a transforming thing this has been in all our lives.. we can all attest to a personal encounter with Christ..lets not strangle it with trying to define what Jesus said with our understanding.. but all cry out.. Help My Unbelief. Help me in those things I cant understand or for whatever reason struggle to believe..keep me close to Your side oh God..

     

    #863324
    Lightenup
    Participant

    Welcome Boomerang!

    I can so relate to your quest. I started seriously seeking the relationship of the Father and Son and Spirit for 28+ years. I have been wrestling with it and I believe God has honored my persistence. I have a recent analogy, a picture of an actual design of asexual begetting in the simplest form. Keep in mind that it is analogy mainly to demonstrate how, from one organism, through the process of asexual reproduction (a begetting) two distinct ”persons” are established in the relationship of parent and offspring. In the following picture you can see how the offspring was every bit as much a part of the original as the parent and that the parent had a beginning at the moment that the offspring had a beginning. However, it was the relationship that began, not their substance/essence. In the case of God, their substance/essence was eternal.

    Here is the picture of that analogy:

    3A82017D-B04F-481A-BD5C-88DDB2821A1C
    God bless you, LU

    #863325
    Lightenup
    Participant

    Btw, Boomerang, I perceive the Holy Spirit as the united “inner person of both the Father and the Son” that while  being in them, can extend from them with omnipresent potential.

    LU

    #864296
    Proclaimer
    Participant

    A Paradox:

    Jesus is either the Son of God or is God.

    If he is both, then he must be the Son of himself.

    #864303
    Lightenup
    Participant

    A Paradox:
    Jesus is either the Son of God or is God.
    If he is both, then he must be the Son of himself.

    OR, God is the Father with his Son, not apart from his Son.

    #864429
    Proclaimer
    Participant

    Which still makes Jesus his own son.

    Back to the drawing board.

    #864431
    Ed J
    Participant

    Hi T8, the obvious question presents itself:

    Did Jesus create himself… Yes or No ?

    Will this question be answered
    with a simple “Yes” or “No”…
    …we BOTH know it won’t

    #864432
    Ed J
    Participant

    T8,

    That is not a “Paradox” but a ‘Conundrum’

    Here is an example of a paradox:

    “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but
    whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” (Luke 9:24)

    To express the concept loosely;
    you down to up – that *IS a paradox

    #864435
    Proclaimer
    Participant

    Thanks Ed J.

    🙂

    #864436
    Proclaimer
    Participant

    Did Jesus create himself… Yes or No ?

    That is an interesting question for some to answer.

    Although I assume they would just say that Jesus was not created, but begotten

    #864437
    Proclaimer
    Participant

    Jesus was fathered by the Holy Spirit, and God his father is a spirit, so another question is:

    Are there two Spirits?

    #864440
    Lightenup
    Participant

    @t8,

    Did Jesus create himself… Yes or No ?

    Look at the Cell diagram (below) and see how it is a relationship that is created, not the substance. The moment the offspring relationship was created, the parent relationship was created but the substance was the same age in both and identical. Also see that the parent cell is the giver, the son cell is the receiver. The parent cell is not the receiver and the son cell is not the giver. Let that analogy show you how that question like that is answered at the cellular level to help give understanding. The parent cell side initiated the process.

    That is the value of the Cell Theory…to help answer that question…did Jesus create himself…Yes or No. Again, I’m not saying God is like a cell but the process of Closed Mitosis shows that the cell offspring did not create itself nor was his essence any different than the parent offspring.

    The answer is NO. Jesus was not created, it was the position and relationship as a son that was created not his essence. The Father’s position and relationship as Father was created at the moment the Father gave of himself to his Son, their essence is eternal as I understand it.

    ClosedMitosisDiagram

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