the trinity would be revealed in a Jewish way of thinking

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darinhouston
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the trinity would be revealed in a Jewish way of thinking

Post by darinhouston » Tue Dec 04, 2018 7:37 am

There are varying interpretations of this passage.

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Homer
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Re: the trinity would be revealed in a Jewish way of thinkin

Post by Homer » Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:35 am

Hi Darin,

You wrote:
There are varying interpretations of this passage.
As is true of every passage that can be thought to have any bearing of the subject. The question to me then is how all biblical data taken together can be best understood. As I mentioned in my second paragraph, previous post, we have a problem: Trinity, binity, or two who are God. Clearly the Greek of the NT inform us the essence of Messiah is divine.

You can argue there is a distinction in office. Seems to me that is about it.

Singalphile
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Re: the trinity would be revealed in a Jewish way of thinkin

Post by Singalphile » Thu Dec 06, 2018 12:09 am

darinhouston wrote:
darinhouston wrote:
Singalphile wrote:The OT mentions the Spirit of God (or the Lord). What did the Israelites think about that? Were they binitarians (God in two persons)? Perhaps Justin Martyr should have mentioned that to Trypho ... unless they didn't understand the Spirit like that.
Since they understood God to be Spirit, I don’t think they meant any more than what I might mean when I say “I saw the very body of my friend Bill walk in the room.” Or “bill came to the party in his very flesh.” Or if I’m talking about my father I might say Dad came in or my Father came in or Frank came in. There aren’t three persons. They refer to the same one.

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Maybe a better example is how we refer to the Body of Christ.

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I think that might be right. I think of Paul saying that his own spirit, rather than his flesh, is with the Colossians Col 2:5.

I'm still not really sure what the Jewish way of expressing Jesus' divinity is supposed to be (referenced in the original post). The idea of fathers and sons is of course universal, though.
... that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. John 5:23

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darinhouston
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Re: the trinity would be revealed in a Jewish way of thinkin

Post by darinhouston » Thu Dec 06, 2018 6:19 pm

Homer wrote:Hi Darin,

You wrote:
There are varying interpretations of this passage.
As is true of every passage that can be thought to have any bearing of the subject. The question to me then is how all biblical data taken together can be best understood. As I mentioned in my second paragraph, previous post, we have a problem: Trinity, binity, or two who are God. Clearly the Greek of the NT inform us the essence of Messiah is divine.

You can argue there is a distinction in office. Seems to me that is about it.
I probably should have waited until I had longer to post that with a more thorough explanation. I still don't have the time I wish I had to develop this. But, we have discussed what "divine" means before -- to me it's like "royalty." To be Royal doesn't imply you're the King. Both the prince and the king are royalty -- that doesn't make them both King. Similarly, Jesus can be divine without being a part of a God-head. But, that's another subject.

As to interpretation of this passage, I didn't mean that as language interpretation, but instead you suggested this passage was an example of a Jewish mind understanding Jesus was God. But this may be a perfect Rorschach. A different (and perhaps better) interpretation of that exchange could suggest that they in fact didn't think He was God, but only that He was claiming to be God (whether they had in mind the "Father" or a part of God-head or some such vs. authority of God is debatable). But, nonetheless, though it's debatable what Jesus' (purposely obtuse?) response meant, Jesus could be said to have made clear to them that they were wrong-thinking and rebuked them in a way (whether He meant to imply that they were wrong to think that He was in fact God or just wrong to think He was at that moment claiming to be God or that He was only doing what others had done isn't really clear). Still others think Jesus was claiming to be "a god" (though not God, Yahweh) and that His rebuke of them was for hypocrisy since they considered themselves gods in a way. But, just because a group of Jews thought He was claiming to be God and were "wrong?" doesn't imply that a Jewish understanding at the time from Scripture and the Apostles' teachings about Christ was that He was rightly God. This group actually thought He wasn't God, which is why they were going to stone Him. So, how can we infer from that passage that a Jew would rightly think of Jesus as God? They clearly did not or they would not have tried to stone Him.

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