"The Christian Life"

The last five words sum it up.

My understanding is that our failure is there to form our characters, and will if we respond in faith, while our full surrender completes the 'no longer I' and his ressurection power that is given in response fulfills the 'but Christ'.

Wouldn't it be comforting to see some particle examples here mentioned?

Col 1:29KJV Col 2:20KJV
Rom 15:18KJV

Prentis, your example on Ananias was a good one and there are many others that reveal his working in and through us.

Insight

Netchaplain said:

Do we do God's work by using His Spirit or does God's Spirit do His work by using us? The primary issue in this question is who's doing the work because that's where the credit is solely attributed.

Us not desiring the credit can lead us to the answer that God does the work, using us, like the hand using the pen to write. The pen doesn't determine the work but is being a partaker of the work.

What's your opinion on the statement below?

"Our Father is going to teach us, mainly through personal failure, that the life we live is the life of our Lord Jesus alone. The Christian life is not our living a life like Christ, or our trying to be Christ-like, nor is it Christ giving us the power to live a life like His; but it is Christ Himself living His own life through us; 'no longer I, but Christ.'"

Loving You In Christ

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It is both Christ living His life through us, AND we living our life through Christ. We also must work to attain the stature of Christ. But we do this through faith. We make faith transactions as it were that increase our hold on the character of Christ.

Peter explains this process here....


2Pe 1:3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2Pe 1:5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
2Pe 1:6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
2Pe 1:7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
2Pe 1:8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2Pe 1:9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
2Pe 1:10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
2Pe 1:11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Thanks Episkopos

2Pe 1:3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

Its worthy of defining how Peter viewed "all things"

Now I know Prentis may have heart palpitations over this Scripturally based comment but notice how Peter draws our attention to where life and godliness are found?

Clearly the resource of Yahweh’s Spirit derived Word is available to all of us here and it is through that full knowledge (compare verse 2 Peter 1:2) of Jesus Christ, namely through an ongoing relationship with him (See Phil 4:13KJV; Col 2:9,10; 2 Tim 1:7KJV)

Insight

Netchaplain said:

"The end of Christ's incarnation

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You present Nicene Christianity which appears to have taken you captive?

Jesus was a created being...the firstborn among the dead. Col 1:18

Insight

Netchaplain said:

Greetings Insight and God bless! I'm not sure I understand what you mean by Christ being created. His incarnation to this life in bodily form wasn't His first existence, but not sure that's what you're addressing.

Christ couldn't have been created because He has existed from eternity past. He was with the Father before He came as a babe. This made Him the only begotten of the Father because it was of the Spirit. We were born of the flesh into this life, not of the Spirit. Man (Adam) is begotten of God into this life by the Son.

Wishing You well.

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Greetings Net

All Trinitarians accept the doctrine you speak to was formed in Nice. This cannot be denied as History has recorded it so.

Many Trinitarian writers go one step further by saying that Constantinople and Toledo designed this theory of the Godhead not from the New Testament, as they could not be expressed in New Testament terms.

Evidently their origins are found in men’s reasoning based on speculation of faith. One Writer I read recently who believed in the trinity said they were the product of centuries of philosophical debate, and elaborated and formed in the terms of Greek and Roman metaphysics.

When one endeavours to honestly reconcile the actual creeds with the New Testament they become unstuck very quickly.

E.g

Where in the Word of God do we find these expressions?


1.We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons; nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.

2. "The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal.

These two examples alone find no basis in the Bible - - we would need to study the Creeds of Men to find their understanding.

You may like to study these council meetings where your teaching today was gradually amended and change down through time.

This pro Creed site provides some history and reasons why the Creed can be trusted http://www.kencollin...ions/why-07.htm the "becuase I say so approach" is very lame and not in the spirit of 1 Thess 5:21

But as you will find the teachings are full of holes, in other words the Trinity cannot hold NT water! But one must ask many questions of the Word to find this Truth.

May God bless your examination and enlighten your understanding.

Insight

Netchaplain said:

I made a mistake and meant to write that Adam was created, not begotten, by the Son (Word).

As for the Trinity I see Scripture emphasize that Jesus is the Son of God, the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of God. Son of God, Spirit of God but not Father of God because the Father is God.

To Your Spiritual Increase

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Some correction required not by me but the Father's Word.

• The Father alone is God
• Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but not God himself
• The Holy Spirit is the power of God, but not God himself
• God created Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit (born of a woman) and died for our sins and was raised to immortality by the Father

I believe the above is supported by the Word and is truth.

Netchaplain said:

The Word of God (Jesus the Son of God) came from Heaven and became (incarnate) a person. I believe Jesus is equal with His Father (John 5:18; Phil 2:6)

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Take a look at your quotations and see if they truly support your claim?

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

So often Christians use quotes to support a preconceived belief as is the case here.

Be interested in your response.

Netchaplain said:

Do we do God's work by using His Spirit or does God's Spirit do His work by using us? The primary issue in this question is who's doing the work because that's where the credit is solely attributed.

Us not desiring the credit can lead us to the answer that God does the work, using us, like the hand using the pen to write. The pen doesn't determine the work but is being a partaker of the work.

What's your opinion on the statement below?

"Our Father is going to teach us, mainly through personal failure, that the life we live is the life of our Lord Jesus alone. The Christian life is not our living a life like Christ, or our trying to be Christ-like, nor is it Christ giving us the power to live a life like His; but it is Christ Himself living His own life through us; 'no longer I, but Christ.'"

Loving You In Christ

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Nice post Netchaplain and welcome to CB

Netchaplain said:

Hi Insight! Doesn't that passage read like this, "Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,"
Phl 2:6. What version did you use?
The Word (Son) of God became a person--"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father ..." Jn 1:14
Love You In Christ

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Hi Netchaplain

Phil 2:6 is drawing on the incident of Eve in the garden Gen 3:6 - though Jesus was able to at any time "grasp" at being like the angels (though he was made lower like Eve) he chose to rather stay as a servant (submissive). Consider the opposite? Say he grasped at equality which is the point in mention - he would in fact be Lording himself over God and His Word.

And that would be sin!

Robbery is Gk "harpagmos": the act of seizing, robbery, ie, something which belongs to someone else, which is unlawfully taken by another! (See Mat 11:12KJV; 13:19; 2Co 12:2,3,4; 1Th 4:17KJV.)

In all usages in the NT the meaning of laying hold of something is always external to oneself.

For Christ to have had equality with God therefore required him to unlawfully take to himself something which he did not have!

If you say he is God then it could not possibly be robbery!

That's the whole point of the verse and hence why I suggest we consider more deeply their meaning before thinking they support a preticular teaching.

Hope this helps

Insight

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Clearly the Jews not having any understanding perceived he was making himself equal with God.

Was their accusation true? Did Jesus throughout his ministry ever claim equality with God?

And what was the Jews motivation in making this accusation? Mark 10:1-12 Matt 22:33-46 To KILL HIM !!!

Now, would you put your trust in the sayings of these men? Concerning the relationship between Father and Son?

Thus far the two passages quoted cannot be used in support of Jesus being God.

Insight

Netchaplain said:

Insight, this at present is the best I can do from John Gil: "Thought it not robbery to be equal with God", the Father; for if he was in the same form, nature, and essence, he must be equal to him, as he is; for he has the same perfections, as eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, immutability, and self-existence: hence he has the same glorious names, as God, the mighty God, the true God, the living God, God over all, Jehovah, the Lord of glory, &c. the same works of creation and providence are ascribed to him, and the same worship, homage, and honour given him: to be "in the form of God," and to be "equal with God," signify the same thing, the one is explanative of the other: and this divine form and equality, or true and proper deity, he did not obtain by force and rapine, by robbery and usurpation, as Satan attempted to do, and as Adam by his instigation also effected.

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But this does not answer Phil 2:6 as you presented it.

Phil 2:6 implies a negative consequence in claiming something that does not belong to him.

I am asking you to consider its substance and not Gill.

2 Tim 2:15KJV

Insight