The First Act of God

God, Christ, & The Holy Spirit
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dwight92070
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Re: The First Act of God

Post by dwight92070 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:49 am

Darin, so you approach scripture as an engineer and a patent lawyer. I approach scripture as one whose life was revolutionized by Jesus Christ. He is worthy of worship - and only God is worthy of worship. God told Israel that He was a jealous God and that they were to have no other gods besides Him. They were told to NEVER worship other gods, that HE ALONE SHOULD BE WORSHIPED. Israel was CONDITIONED, as it were, to recognize ONLY ONE GOD. So when Jesus arrived on the scene, making Himself equal with God, receiving worship,forgiving sins and doing what only God can do, this was a HUGE stumbling block for the Jews, because they knew that there was ONLY ONE GOD, and that HE ALONE SHOULD BE WORSHIPED. Jesus Himself referenced that truth when the devil wanted to be worshiped. Peter told Cornelius to get up and stop worshiping him, because he, too, was just a man. Yet Peter and the rest of the twelve apostles worshiped Jesus on several occasions. Even the wise men from the east knew somehow that Jesus was to be worshiped - even as a child. The angels in Revelation 19:10 and 22:8-9 rebuked John when he fell down to worship them. They told him to worship God, not them.

Not only are we to worship Jesus here on earth, but they continually worship Him in heaven. We see this in Revelation 5: Myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands of angels and the living creatures and the 24 elders FELL DOWN AND WORSHIPED THE LAMB AND HE WHO SITS ON THE THRONE WITH EQUAL PRAISE. Yet the Father rebukes NO ONE for worshiping the Lamb with EQUAL PRAISE, GLORY AND HONOR, AS HE HIMSELF IS WORTHY OF. Why? There can be only one answer and Jesus Himself tells us: "I and the Father are ONE." Yes, they are distinct, but they are also ONE. John put it this way. "The Word was with God, and the Word WAS GOD."

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darinhouston
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Re: The First Act of God

Post by darinhouston » Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:26 pm

dwight92070 wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:49 am
Darin, so you approach scripture as an engineer and a patent lawyer. I approach scripture as one whose life was revolutionized by Jesus Christ. He is worthy of worship - and only God is worthy of worship. God told Israel that He was a jealous God and that they were to have no other gods besides Him. They were told to NEVER worship other gods, that HE ALONE SHOULD BE WORSHIPED. Israel was CONDITIONED, as it were, to recognize ONLY ONE GOD. So when Jesus arrived on the scene, making Himself equal with God, receiving worship,forgiving sins and doing what only God can do, this was a HUGE stumbling block for the Jews, because they knew that there was ONLY ONE GOD, and that HE ALONE SHOULD BE WORSHIPED. Jesus Himself referenced that truth when the devil wanted to be worshiped. Peter told Cornelius to get up and stop worshiping him, because he, too, was just a man. Yet Peter and the rest of the twelve apostles worshiped Jesus on several occasions. Even the wise men from the east knew somehow that Jesus was to be worshiped - even as a child. The angels in Revelation 19:10 and 22:8-9 rebuked John when he fell down to worship them. They told him to worship God, not them.

Not only are we to worship Jesus here on earth, but they continually worship Him in heaven. We see this in Revelation 5: Myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands of angels and the living creatures and the 24 elders FELL DOWN AND WORSHIPED THE LAMB AND HE WHO SITS ON THE THRONE WITH EQUAL PRAISE. Yet the Father rebukes NO ONE for worshiping the Lamb with EQUAL PRAISE, GLORY AND HONOR, AS HE HIMSELF IS WORTHY OF. Why? There can be only one answer and Jesus Himself tells us: "I and the Father are ONE." Yes, they are distinct, but they are also ONE. John put it this way. "The Word was with God, and the Word WAS GOD."
I am motivated by a life revolutionized by Jesus Christ, but I study the scriptural revelation as a rational person with skills in reasoning and literary and textual analysis -- as a Berean, if you will.

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Paidion
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Re: The First Act of God

Post by Paidion » Thu Sep 16, 2021 7:29 pm

Dwight wrote:I approach scripture as one whose life was revolutionized by Jesus Christ. He is worthy of worship - and only God is worthy of worship. God told Israel that He was a jealous God and that they were to have no other gods besides Him. They were told to NEVER worship other gods, that HE ALONE SHOULD BE WORSHIPED. Israel was CONDITIONED, as it were, to recognize ONLY ONE GOD. So when Jesus arrived on the scene, making Himself equal with God, receiving worship,forgiving sins and doing what only God can do, this was a HUGE stumbling block for the Jews, because they knew that there was ONLY ONE GOD, and that HE ALONE SHOULD BE WORSHIPED.
You are presuming that Jesus qualifies to be worshipped because He is God. Not so. Jesus qualifies to be worshipped because He is the ONLY-begotten Son of God, begotten as God's first act, before anything was created.

Because He was begotten by God, He, like God, is divine—the only other divine being that ever existed.
That is the point—He is divine like His Father. But that does not imply that He IS the Father. Not does it imply that He is "God" in some ethereal sense.
Paidion

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dwight92070
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Re: The First Act of God

Post by dwight92070 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:24 pm

Not so. The Bible is very clear that only God is to be worshiped. Haven't you read the Ten Commandments and the other scriptures that I referred to? If Jesus is not God, then it is a sin to worship Him. It's really quite simple. Even a teenager could understand it.

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darinhouston
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Re: The First Act of God

Post by darinhouston » Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:12 pm

dwight92070 wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:24 pm
Not so. The Bible is very clear that only God is to be worshiped. Haven't you read the Ten Commandments and the other scriptures that I referred to? If Jesus is not God, then it is a sin to worship Him. It's really quite simple. Even a teenager could understand it.
We've tread that ground quite thoroughly as I recall. This requires word studies, but the Bible has numerous examples of "worshipping" others (often meaning only bowing down in honor or subjection to or the like) -- the question is whether it is ok to worship something "as God" and whether that is the context within which Jesus is said to be "worshipped." There is a lot of debate around that issue. So, it's not so simple that a "teenager" would see it. Though, again, I'd suggest that's not a very good test (seeing as I have two of them right now).

Another approach some take with this issue is that there is a "general truth" that no one is to worshipped except for God. But, then even with general truths of other sorts, there are exceptions where God has specifically instructed or authorized something specific as exceptions to the general rule. If Jesus has been declared God's Son and elevated to His right hand, etc., and given honor worthy of worship, then that worship is permitted. It's not the same thing, but conceptually there's a general truth that no one rises from the dead. Of course, there are exceptions through the power of the Holy Spirit.

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dwight92070
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Re: The First Act of God

Post by dwight92070 » Fri Sep 17, 2021 8:45 am

Well then, try the experiment, and see what your teenagers come up with. Have them read John 1: 1-18. Then ask them, who or what is the Word? Who or what is the Light? What do these verses tell us about the Word? What do these verses tell us about the LIght?
Or ask them to write down what message or messages they see in these 18 verses.
My kids are older or I would do that myself. I think I'll ask them anyway.

By the way, just because the Bible has places where men worshiped other men, that does not make it right.
God permitted, and even encouraged men to worship Jesus, because He was God in the flesh, not because He was making an exception. There's no exception given in "You shall have no other gods before Me".

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darinhouston
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Re: The First Act of God

Post by darinhouston » Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:03 am

dwight92070 wrote:
Fri Sep 17, 2021 8:45 am
Well then, try the experiment, and see what your teenagers come up with. Have them read John 1: 1-18. Then ask them, who or what is the Word? Who or what is the Light? What do these verses tell us about the Word? What do these verses tell us about the LIght?
Or ask them to write down what message or messages they see in these 18 verses.
My kids are older or I would do that myself. I think I'll ask them anyway.

By the way, just because the Bible has places where men worshiped other men, that does not make it right.
God permitted, and even encouraged men to worship Jesus, because He was God in the flesh, not because He was making an exception. There's no exception given in "You shall have no other gods before Me".
"You shall have no other gods before Me" is not the same as "thou shall not honor and revere or even bow down in subjection to others that I so designate even if you aren't putting them at my level or higher as authorities outside of me and my will." Scripture has ample places where such adoration and "worship" (if you will) without any indication that there is anything wrong with it.

As to the teenager test, I really don't think that's a very worthwhile test, but it also shows you are the one trying to focus on trees instead of forests. Otherwise, why go to the group in our culture that is (likely) the most ignorant and uninformed and uninterested in context and historical scope and semantic range of translation issues to test your reading? The most superficial reading is rarely the most likely true one, especially for a passage like John 1 that is, whatever else it is, widely and virtually uniformly considered by scholars and theologians of every sort to be one of the most poetic and somewhat obscure passages in all the Bible.

Interestingly, trying to "diagram" John 1 and strictly follow pronouns and referents is where my journey in this area first began. My first reaction was that there could be a fourth member of the godhead -- a quaternary if you will. I dismissed that quickly and then turned to the personality of the Holy Spirit and have come back to John 1 over and over. It is a most interesting passage, but anyone who thinks it's plain and simple and straightforward (to my mind) simply doesn't seem to be thinking very rigorously (or could be relatively uninformed). Just considering differences between some of the verbs being used like "is" vs. "became" really should cause at least some pause.

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Paidion
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Re: The First Act of God

Post by Paidion » Fri Sep 17, 2021 10:24 am

Concerning the personality of the Holy Spirit, there's no doubt that the Spirit is personal. But that does not imply that the Spirit is a "third divine Person", but rather is simply the spirit of the Father or the spirit of the Son—just as the existence of your spirit does not imply the existence of a person other than you.
Paidion

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Paidion
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Re: The First Act of God

Post by Paidion » Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:33 pm

I had a friend who went much further than Dwight in stating who Jesus was. He said that Jesus was the Father Himself, saying that Isaiah 9:6 proves it.

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, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.


There you have it! Jesus is not only the Mighty God but also the Everlasting Father!
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

Avatar shows me at 75 years old. I am now 83.

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darinhouston
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Re: The First Act of God

Post by darinhouston » Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:43 pm

Paidion wrote:
Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:33 pm
I had a friend who went much further than Dwight in stating who Jesus was. He said that Jesus was the Father Himself, saying that Isaiah 9:6 proves it.

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, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.


There you have it! Jesus is not only the Mighty God but also the Everlasting Father!
I dare say even a teenager would come to that conclusion.

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