Jesus is God

[dwight92070]

Dwight: I'm curious what you do with that! (Not really - I know what you will do - explain it all away as you do all the rest of the verses that are clear, plain and easy to understand, but you don't want to accept)

Then what's the point of discourse with you? And you complain of Paidion? This is not an edifying discussion and I think I'm about done - you aren't interested in anything but stating that texts are clear and plain where academia and literature abounds in discourse on these subjects. And if you don't want someone to "explain it away" then there's no point in asking a question -- it's certainly what you do.

Dwight: Are there no scriptural texts that are clear and plain to you and Paidon? Pretty much every text that I put forward, you guys tear it apart and make it say what it does not say, given the common understanding of the English language. Because you don't accept the common understanding, you put forward all of the speculations and sometimes lies, apparently from all the "academia and literature" that abounds on these subjects. I'm sure that there is discourse that abounds in academia and literature on just about every verse in the Bible, if not every word. So, if you choose that (the academia and literature) as your source of understanding the Bible, then you can make it say a hundred different things. All you have to do is choose which of those things you want to adopt as your view.

Dwight: It must very cumbersome for you guys to read the Bible. After each verse, you would have to look up all the multitude of differing academic and literary viewpoints (I would assume many of the viewpoints come from persons who do not even claim faith in Jesus) before you can say that you understand what you just read. Then you move on to the next verse. When I read the Bible, I find that most of the time, I can read several verses, sometimes many verses, sometimes a whole chapter and when I've completed that, I say to myself: I understand that. Sure, sometimes I will look up cross references or use the dictionary and/or concordance etc. But often, I don't even need to do that because I get what the author is saying.

Dwight: Take John chapter one for instance. Verse one is clear to me. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Since John is speaking about God, who I know is an eternal being, then "In the beginning" must mean eternity past, not that there was a literal starting point. Since "The Word was God", I know that The Word is not a "thing" or an "it". The Word must also be eternal and must be a "person" as God is. The Word can be with God, and yet actually BE God at the same time. That is, The Word and God are 2 persons and yet they are 1 person at the same time. Do I completely understand this? Of course not, but I understand that that is what John is saying. "He was in the beginning with God." The Word is identified as the male gender, even as God is. John goes on to speak of John the Baptist, and basically identifies "The Word", now called "The Light", as Jesus. "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us ..." The Word, Who was God, dwelt among us here on earth. Therefore, God became a human, in the person of Jesus. This is the plain meaning of John's words. Could I be wrong? Of course I could, but when there's tons of other verses that confirm these truths, then It becomes obvious to me that this is the right conclusion and the plain meaning of John's words.

Dwight: I thought the point of our discourse was to share the truth that we know, and then possibly learn even more truth from each other. Yes, I would think of it as a debate. So we have to, at times, point out that what the other person thinks is true, many not be. But that requires that both sides be willing to acknowledge truth, even if it was put forward by the other side. For example, my point for the above, is that not everything in the Bible is unclear. Many verses, even chapters are very clear and therefore, require very little or no debate, given that we understand the English language.

[Paidion]

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Since John is speaking about God, who I know is an eternal being, then "In the beginning" must mean eternity past, not that there was a literal starting point.

Dwight, an important point to note in this passage is that the first occurrence of "God" (but not the second) has the article "the" before it and therefore refers to the Father.

"The Word was with the God and the word was God."

Suppose you are with a very important man, whom people often call "the man".
It could be said, "Dwight is with the man and Dwight is man." (meaning that Dwight is himself human).
Similarly, "the Word" was with THE God (the Father) and the Word was God (meaning that the Word, like His Father was also divine).

In Colossians 1:15,16, Paul wrote concerning Jesus:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation (so) that in him (or through him) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible...

Yes, the early Chistians were right in saying that God begat His Son as the first of His acts (the firstborn of all creation) and then created everything else through Him or by means of Him.

[Homer]

Seems to me the following scriptures ought to humble us a bit as we busily construct a box for God and attempt to stuff Him in it:

Psalm 145:3
3. Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised,
And His greatness is unsearchable.

Job 26:14
14. Behold, these are the fringes of His ways;
And how faint a word we hear of Him!
But His mighty thunder, who can understand?

Isaiah 55:8-9
8.“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
9. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

1 Timothy 6:16
16. who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.

Romans 11:33-34
33. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?

1 Corinthians 2:10-11
10. For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11. For who among people knows the thoughts of a person except the spirit of the person that is in him? So also the thoughts of God no one knows, except the Spirit of God.

Hmm, that last one sounds an awful lot like a personal Spirit rather than like some Star Wars force. Oh well, we'll figure out a way to get around it.

God exists in another realm. He is knowable to us to the extent He has revealed Himself to us, most notably through Jesus. Our analogies, based on our existence as it is in this universe, can only partially explain Him. How can He be omni-present? How can He know the thoughts of billions of people at all times? How can He be invisible yet appear as a man while also being everywhere at once? And who can say He can not be three personae simultaneously?

[darinhouston]

God exists in another realm. He is knowable to us to the extent He has revealed Himself to us, most notably through Jesus. Our analogies, based on our existence as it is in this universe, can only partially explain Him. How can He be omni-present? How can He know the thoughts of billions of people at all times? How can He be invisible yet appear as a man while also being everywhere at once? And who can say He can not be three personae simultaneously?

Amen, and if it were clearly revealed we could submit to it without understanding how. But, it is contrary to all known understanding and not clearly taught. Also, virtually no trinitarians would consider persons to be "personae"

[Homer]

Darin,

You wrote:

Also, virtually no trinitarians would consider persons to be "personae"

I think "personae" has a very long history in the church although we no longer hear of it.

Tertullian was the first to use the word persona for the persons of the Trinity. Those who share the one substance of the Godhead exist in three persona. While substantia refers to what joins and unifies the inner life of the Godhead, persona points to what characterizes and distinguishes it.

Alexander Campbell in The Christian Baptist, March 1, 1827:

To Timothy
DEAR SIR,--YOU will recollect that when I was interrogated on that subject, I gave sundry reasons why I felt reluctant to speculate on the incomprehensible Jehovah. It was also stated that there was no topic in common estimation so awfully sacred as that of the doctrine of "the Trinity," and if a man did not speak in a very fixed and set phrase on this subject, he endangered his whole Christian reputation and his own usefulness.

Amen!

Campbell was a trinitarian.

[Paidion]

"The doctrine of the Trinity" is found nowhere in the New Testament.
It appears that Tertullian may have been the first to teach it (in the 3rd century).

[dwight92070]

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Since John is speaking about God, who I know is an eternal being, then "In the beginning" must mean eternity past, not that there was a literal starting point.

Dwight, an important point to note in this passage is that the first occurrence of "God" (but not the second) has the article "the" before it and therefore refers to the Father.

"The Word was with the God and the word was God."

Dwight: If they had meant to refer to the Father, then why didn't they use the Greek word for Father, as they did in hundreds of other verses where the Father is refered to?

In Colossians 1:15,16, Paul wrote concerning Jesus:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation (so) that in him (or through him) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible...

Yes, the early Chistians were right in saying that God begat His Son as the first of His acts (the firstborn of all creation) and then created everything else through Him or by means of Him.

Dwight: Mere speculation which, by the way, doesn't fit with the true meaning of "the firstborn of all creation" as it is used in context- that He has preeminence over all. It means that every time it is used. Once again, since Jesus is eternal, He did not have a beginning, as you say He did.l

[Paidion]

So... according to you, "the firstborn of all creation" does not mean the firstborn of all creation, but that Jesus has preeminence over all.

With that kind of "reasoning, then perhaps your statement "Jesus is God" does not mean that Jesus is God, but that Jesus has divine power.

[Darrell]

Submitted for your contemplation

Regarding John 1:1,
Here is a link to a teaching by Martin Luther covering John 1:1-14
http://sermons.martinluther.us/sermons11.html

Commentary by Wallace bracketed
["As Martin Luther said, the lack of an article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism.

To state this another way, look at how the different Greek constructions would be rendered:

καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν ὁ θεός
“and the Word was the God”
(i.e., the Father; Sabellianism)

καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν θεός
“and the Word was a god” (Arianism)

καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
“and the Word was God” (Orthodoxy).

Jesus Christ is God and has all the attributes that the Father has. But he is not the first person of the Trinity. All this is concisely affirmed in καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

Daniel B. Wallace"]

To try and make a doctorinal point by the addition of the indefinite or the absence of the article is fruitless.
(See Monty Python Argument:
https://youtu.be/ohDB5gbtaEQ )

While it is true the addition of the indefinite at times does make reading "smoother" and can help with understanding a thought;
in translating, unless the text cannot be understood without it, the addition of the indefinite is to accommodate a theological grid.

Finally, this is an interesting read:
https://bible.org/article/jesus-%CE%B8% ... xamination

Paidion, about mid way through the author comments on the vocative / nominative discussion of Heb 1:8

Live Blest - d

[darinhouston]

"The doctrine of the Trinity" is found nowhere in the New Testament.
It appears that Tertullian may have been the first to teach it (in the 3rd century).

Paidion, I haven't looked at Tertullian in a while, but I don't think he was a Trinitarian in any Nicene sense of the word - he was the first to be known to use the term "trinity" but I recall he used it in a much more generic way (more as a triad of 3 separate things) and I don't think any orthodox trinitarian would agree with much of his views when understood in his context.

Here's a debate on whether Terullian was a trinitarian if anyone is interested in more on Tertullian. It's been a while since I've listened to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mvu0o7yoI4 (Part 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecnjsZonK6o (Part 2)