Why did Jesus pray to himself?

Wrangler · May 14, 2026

PS95 said:
What I said was some sort of a trinity.

You asked this question.

PS95 said:
how can we not see some sort of trinity?

And I answered your question.

PS95 said:
Take care Wrangler- I have no more to say to you.

Seems your question was not motivated by a sincere desire to learn the truth. Just a rhetorical question you now seem to resent that I took the time to answer. Take care PS95.

PS95 · May 15, 2026

Wrangler said:
You asked this question. And I answered your question.

Pay better attention to when someone is speaking to you or NOT.
How many times must I say to you that I am not interested in your comments? It must be at about 50x by now. Try to get it into your head.

Wrangler said:
Seems your question was not motivated by a sincere desire to learn the truth. Just a rhetorical question you now seem to resent that I took the time to answer. Take care PS95.

HAHA in your usual narcissism you somehow figured my rhetorical question was seeking truth from a loudmouth who calls Jesus a liar?
Go away.

Wrangler · May 15, 2026

PS95 said:
HAHA in your usual narcissism you somehow figured my rhetorical question was seeking truth from a loudmouth who calls Jesus a liar?

Was the girl sleeping or dead?

PS95 · May 16, 2026

Wrangler said:
Was the girl sleeping or dead?

Sleeping obviously. That is how Jesus sees it. He was not lying. Did He not raise her up from her sleep?
Jesus mainly used the word "DEAD" for those alive who are dead spiritually. This child was sleeping was not dead to Him.
Because you disagree with the way the Lord defines and knows things does not make Him a liar in any sense.
It only makes you in disagreement with Him- as usual. Jesus knew full well that HE IS THE RESURRECTION- so to HIM she was merely sleeping. Why can't you grasp that much? It is called faith and hope!
Look at the apostles who were confused by Jesus' use of death and sleep and learn-

Luke 8
“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.” 12The disciples then said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of literal sleep. 14So Jesus then said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.” 16Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.”

Please get your head on straight Wrangler. Jesus uses "sleep" because it's temporal and is not death which is permanent (LOF). He offers those there who were mourning, comfort and HOPE assuring them that they can believe Him. HE IS the RESURRECTION.
Jesus wept- not for Himself or Lazarus- but for the pain in the heart of his crying sister. Jesus knew Lazarus was asleep and would awaken. He was giving them hope and comfort and He delivers on that hope. You call Him a liar- and I call Him- Wonderful.

Justified · May 16, 2026

MatthewG said:
Okay.

People also divide and try to argue and then say oh that person is not a christian behind their back to other people....

It's really crappy attitude in my opinion.

Just let people be and allow them to think for themselves.

I have no problem with the trinity believers.... I just don't see the way that they do and that is okay.

I have shared my views on this thread already so I have no need to repeat myself.

People have to think and decide for themselves.... and people are free to choose as they want... not everyone got everything down perfectly.

God knows.

Yes, God knows and we all see as "in a mirror dimly," yet, there are things which are clear enough in Scripture upon which salvation hinges, including the claims Jesus made of himself as the Son of God. Do you think it is reasonable that a person can believe whatever they want about Jesus and think they can be saved?

Who Jesus is is of central importance. So, yes, "people have to think and decide for themselves," but they aren't necessarily "free to choose as they want" and it will not do to "just let people be and allow them to think for themselves." When it comes to the truths of Scripture, particularly about who God is and who the Son is, error can be fatal.

MatthewG · May 16, 2026

I don’t think so. It’s okay for you to think what is important or not. I shared what has been shared.

It’s important to encourage people in this life to indeed think for themselves.

People who want to be divisive because of the spirit of dissension is those who just want to divide to divide.

Let people choose for themselves and allow them to work it out in the first place…

There unfortunately innumerable about people that are constantly bombarding themselves on religious things from religious people be it in the church, tv, and media or books.

In the end people need to look and decide for themselves.

I can share how see things. Faith is what is important.

Do you believe that faith is important concern resurrection?

For myself I do believe there is doing so in the resurrection of Jesus by the Holy Spirit of God….

But people will fight tooth and nail for their beliefs just so they can be saying “I’m right I told you so”type of attitude, or just ignorance.

There was nothing wrong what was initially said just someone doesn’t like it.

That’s natural, I don’t like loving people but Jesus makes it possible.

Justified · May 16, 2026

MatthewG said:
I don’t think so. It’s okay for you to think what is important or not. I shared what has been shared.

The NT writers disagree. There are somethings which are important for all believers to believe:

Jud 1:3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

To "contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints," suggests that there is only one faith, one set of beliefs, for believers that needs to be contended for. This is what Paul constantly did:

Act 17:2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
Act 17:3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
...
Act 17:17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. (ESV)

Act 18:4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. (ESV)

MatthewG said:
It’s important to encourage people in this life to indeed think for themselves.

Yet, it should not be done without the help of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, can it even be truly said that a person can think for themselves when we know everyone is influenced by either the flesh, the devil, or the Holy Spirit, or any combination of those? And, it should go without saying that some people just have very poor critical thinking skills and so can come to obviously wrong conclusions.

MatthewG said:
People who want to be divisive because of the spirit of dissension is those who just want to divide to divide.

Certainly there are some who seem to be divisive for the sake of it, but there are many others who realize the importance of what Scripture teaches regarding salvation, particularly just who it is we are putting our faith in and what he has done. And so there is need to discuss these things to try and correct from grave error.

MatthewG said:
Let people choose for themselves and allow them to work it out in the first place…

There unfortunately innumerable about people that are constantly bombarding themselves on religious things from religious people be it in the church, tv, and media or books.

Which they should do, to a degree. Yes, people can take those things too far, but we are called to community in Christ, which means we should never go it alone; we can learn on our own, but it still needs to be done within community, be it current or 2,000 years old. To make it all about the individual is to put self before what Christ has called us to; that is pride.

MatthewG said:
In the end people need to look and decide for themselves.

I can share how see things. Faith is what is important.

Do you believe that faith is important concern resurrection?

For myself I do believe there is doing so in the resurrection of Jesus by the Holy Spirit of God….

Faith is important, but faith in what or who? Faith in Jesus? Then which Jesus: the one who is only human, the one who was the incarnation of Michael the Archangel, the one who was created as a god, the one who was made a god at some point during his life, or the one who has always been God?

MatthewG said:
But people will fight tooth and nail for their beliefs just so they can be saying “I’m right I told you so”type of attitude, or just ignorance.

Yes, they will. Some do it from pride, some from ignorance, and some because the Bible tells us that there are things that really, really matter, that getting them wrong means one spends eternity apart from God. Jesus is "the way, and the truth, and the life" and "no one comes to the Father except through [him]," so it stands to reason that truth is of central importance, particularly the truth of who Jesus truly is.

Joh 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, (ESV)

Joh 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
...
Joh 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (ESV)

Joh 20:31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (ESV)

To "believe in the name" is to believe in the sum of all that Jesus is revealed to be in Scripture, and to believe in his name is to "receive him."

MatthewG · May 16, 2026

Sorry man, I don't got time for all this stuff. I been a believer for idk 8 years now. So I don't really have a need for anyone tell me anything. I don't understand why you think you need to tell me anything in the first place, I guess is what I am saying... I just aint dumb or need help or need anyone breaking anything that I am saying down for me. All the best.

Looks like you know where you stand or whatever. Great! Give yourself a pat on the back.

I dont have any issues with my own faith and having a relationship with God.

It's still the death burial and resurrection. :ntmetu

Other people shouldnt either.

Justified · May 16, 2026

MatthewG said:
Sorry man, I don't got time for all this stuff.

You don't have time to take seriously the pursuit of truth as revealed in Scripture? You don't have time to discuss things about God?

MatthewG said:
I been a believer for idk 8 years now. So I don't really have a need for anyone tell me anything.

That's spiritual pride. Be careful.

MatthewG said:
I don't understand why you think you need to tell me anything in the first place,

Well, you started it. Why did you think you needed to tell me something to begin with?

MatthewG · May 16, 2026

Spiritual pride is where you look down at others. Idk what I did I just share some things already. No I dont have time to discuss currently.

People can do that in their own time. I did for 8 years. It doesnt mean I am better than anyone... I just do know a lot but I also know all the rhetorical rethortic stuff.

I don't owe anyone anything on this website I can share as I please with a answer or not answer at all.

I just dont care for disrespectful conversations really. And I can probably be the rudest person in the room.

Besides this thread is about why did Jesus pray to himself and the answer to that is he never did pray to himself.

Pierac · May 16, 2026

Armour of God said:
But I could never understand how Jesus can be God.

Agency

The foundation of our Bible is the Old Testament. It contains the first three-quarters of Scripture, and it stands to reason that if we misunderstand this Hebrew foundation, we build a system of error. The art of successful reading is generally to let the last quarter of a book agree with the first three-quarters. As the grand finale of the Bible, the New Testament agrees with and is consistent with its Old Testament heritage. In order to understand its message we must become familiar with the thought-forms, the idioms, the culture and the customs of those who lived in Biblical times.

H. N. Snaith, in his book The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament, writes that Christianity has tended to suffer from a translation out of the Prophets and into Plato, and that the reinterpretation of Biblical theology in terms of Greek philosophical ideas has been both widespread throughout the centuries and everywhere destructive to the essence of the Christian faith. Snaith goes further, arguing that if his thesis is correct, then neither Catholic nor Protestant theology is genuinely based on Biblical theology. In each case, Christian theology has been dominated by Greek thought. He contends that there can be no right theology until we come to a clear view of the distinctive ideas of both Old and New Testaments and their differences from the pagan ideas that have so largely dominated Christian thought.

According to many scholars, a great deal of Bible confusion can be cleared up by understanding what is known as the Principle of Agency.

The Principle of Agency

A common feature of the Hebrew Bible is the concept — some even call it the law — of Jewish agency. All Old Testament scholars and commentators recognize that in Jewish custom, whenever a superior commissioned an agent to act on his behalf, the agent was regarded as the person himself. This is well expressed in the Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion. Whenever an agent was sent to act for his master, it was as though that lord himself was acting and speaking. An equivalent in our own culture would be one who is authorized to act as Power of Attorney, or more precisely, Enduring Power of Attorney.

Moses and the Burning Bush

In the story of Moses and the burning bush in Exodus 3, the text states that God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" (v.4). Verse 6 is even more striking when the same speaker says, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Surely, one might say, it was Yahweh himself who appeared and personally spoke. Yet verse 2 prefaces the entire narrative by stating that "the angel of the LORD appeared" to Moses from the midst of the bush.

The martyr Stephen, described as a man filled with the Holy Spirit, provides the clearest commentary on this incident. In Acts 7:30-33 he states plainly that it was an angel who appeared to Moses in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush, and that as Moses approached, there came the voice of the Lord saying, "I am the God of your father." This is a clear example of agency. It is an angel who appears and speaks, yet the angel speaks for God in the first person. The angel of the Lord says, "I am God." The agent is distinguished from God yet identified with him. In Hebrew understanding, it is perfectly natural to regard the agent as the person himself.

Peter's Release from Prison

In Acts 12, the apostle Peter is in jail awaiting execution. An angel appears, wakes him, and leads him past the guards and out through the iron gate, which opened on its own accord. Peter, initially thinking he was seeing a vision, followed the angel to safety. When he arrived at the house where the church was praying for him, he told them his incredible story — and what he said was that the Lord had led him out of prison (v.17). So who actually freed Peter? The text says both the angel and the Lord did. The Lord sent the angel to do the actual work, but to the Hebrew mind it was really the Lord who rescued Peter. The agent acts as the principal.

Further Old Testament Examples

In Genesis 31:11-13, Jacob tells his wives that the angel of God said to him in a dream, "I am the God of Bethel." Here again an angel speaks as though he were God himself, using the first person without hesitation. In the following chapter, Jacob wrestles with a man until dawn, and afterward declares that he has seen God face to face (Gen. 32:24-30). Some have suggested this was the pre-existent Christ appearing in human form, but the prophet Hosea settles the matter in 12:3-4, identifying the figure as the angel. The one called both "a man" and "God" in Genesis is simply the angel — a perfect example of Jewish agency where the agent is considered as the principal.

Exodus 7 provides another instructive case. God tells Moses that He Himself will strike the Nile with the staff in His own hand (v.17), yet just two verses later He instructs Moses to have Aaron stretch out his hand to do it (v.19). Aaron holds the rod; Aaron acts as God's agent, standing in the very place of God himself. So completely is the agent identified with the principal that Moses and Aaron are described as elohim — God — to Pharaoh. This same dynamic explains the translation difficulties surrounding Exodus 21:6, where some versions render the Hebrew elohim as "judges" and others as "God." Both renderings are correct. The judges of Israel represented God as His agents and were therefore called elohim. A vow made before them was a binding vow made before God Himself.

The account of Gideon in Judges 6:11-22 is equally instructive. The angel of the LORD sits under an oak tree and greets Gideon, but when the text describes the angel looking at him, it says that the LORD looked at him and spoke. The angel uses the first-person voice of God throughout the exchange. Yet Gideon himself is not confused. When the angel vanishes, Gideon exclaims, "I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face" (v.22). He knows it was an angel, not God Himself — for the Scriptures are perfectly clear that no one has ever seen God (John 1:18; 1 Timothy 6:16; 1 John 4:12). All confusion dissolves when the Hebrew law of agency is understood: a person's agent is regarded as the person himself.

Deuteronomy 29 provides perhaps the clearest illustration of the principle as it applies to human agents. Moses is preaching to Israel, recounting everything God has done for them, speaking about God in the third person. Then in verse 6, mid-sermon, Moses shifts without warning to the first person and says, "I am the LORD your God." God is not personally addressing the people. Moses is preaching. But Moses, as God's appointed agent, can speak as though he were the Lord Himself. God speaks through His representative, and the voice of the representative becomes the voice of God.

A New Testament Example: The Centurion's Servant

The Principle of Agency also resolves an apparent contradiction in the Gospels. In Matthew 8:5-13, the Centurion himself comes to Jesus and pleads for his servant to be healed. In Luke 7:1-10, however, it is made clear that the Centurion did not go in person but sent Jewish elders as his agents to speak to Jesus on his behalf. Did the Gospel writers get confused? Not at all. Matthew, writing in the Hebrew idiom, places the Centurion himself before Jesus — because the agents he sent were acting as him. The elders stood before Jesus as though the Centurion himself stood there. This is the Hebrew mind at work, and it is entirely consistent.

Jesus as the Ultimate Agent

Some scholars have attempted to identify the angel of the LORD throughout the Old Testament as Jesus Christ in His pre-existence. Hebrews 1:1-2 directly addresses this: "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son." The Son did not speak in Old Testament times. God spoke then in various ways — through prophets, visions, and angels — and it is only since Jesus was born of Mary and appeared in history that God has spoken in His Son. Acts 7:53, Galatians 3:19, and Hebrews 2:2 all confirm that the earlier revelations came through angels, not through Christ.

Exodus 23:20-23 sheds further light on how the principle works. God says to Israel, "Behold, I send an angel before you... for my name is in him." This angel was to stand in the place of God for Israel — to speak God's words, to go before them, and to express God's very name. If this was true of a mere angel of the Lord, how much more is it true of the Son of God? Jesus claimed to represent God as no other before or after him. He claimed to be the unique spokesman of the Father, to act in total accord and harmony with God, and to be the Son and appointed agent of the Father.

This is why he could say, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30), and "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9), and in his high priestly prayer, "This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3). For the disciples, Jesus stood in the place of God. He spoke God's words, proclaimed God's truth, and pronounced His judgments. Yet he remained distinct from the Father, as Acts 2:22 makes plain: "Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him." Jesus had every right to claim to be God — because God was in him, doing His works. This is the Hebrew Principle of Agency at its highest and fullest expression.

Stumpmaster · May 16, 2026

Pierac said:
Agency
The foundation of our Bible is the Old Testament. It contains the first three-quarters of Scripture, and it stands to reason that if we misunderstand this Hebrew foundation, we build a system of error. The art of successful reading is generally to let the last quarter of a book agree with the first three-quarters. As the grand finale of the Bible, the New Testament agrees with and is consistent with its Old Testament heritage. In order to understand its message we must become familiar with the thought-forms, the idioms, the culture and the customs of those who lived in Biblical times.

H. N. Snaith, in his book The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament, writes that Christianity has tended to suffer from a translation out of the Prophets and into Plato, and that the reinterpretation of Biblical theology in terms of Greek philosophical ideas has been both widespread throughout the centuries and everywhere destructive to the essence of the Christian faith. Snaith goes further, arguing that if his thesis is correct, then neither Catholic nor Protestant theology is genuinely based on Biblical theology. In each case, Christian theology has been dominated by Greek thought. He contends that there can be no right theology until we come to a clear view of the distinctive ideas of both Old and New Testaments and their differences from the pagan ideas that have so largely dominated Christian thought.

According to many scholars, a great deal of Bible confusion can be cleared up by understanding what is known as the Principle of Agency.

The Principle of Agency
A common feature of the Hebrew Bible is the concept — some even call it the law — of Jewish agency. All Old Testament scholars and commentators recognize that in Jewish custom, whenever a superior commissioned an agent to act on his behalf, the agent was regarded as the person himself. This is well expressed in the Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion. Whenever an agent was sent to act for his master, it was as though that lord himself was acting and speaking. An equivalent in our own culture would be one who is authorized to act as Power of Attorney, or more precisely, Enduring Power of Attorney.

Moses and the Burning Bush
In the story of Moses and the burning bush in Exodus 3, the text states that God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" (v.4). Verse 6 is even more striking when the same speaker says, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Surely, one might say, it was Yahweh himself who appeared and personally spoke. Yet verse 2 prefaces the entire narrative by stating that "the angel of the LORD appeared" to Moses from the midst of the bush.

The martyr Stephen, described as a man filled with the Holy Spirit, provides the clearest commentary on this incident. In Acts 7:30-33 he states plainly that it was an angel who appeared to Moses in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush, and that as Moses approached, there came the voice of the Lord saying, "I am the God of your father." This is a clear example of agency. It is an angel who appears and speaks, yet the angel speaks for God in the first person. The angel of the Lord says, "I am God." The agent is distinguished from God yet identified with him. In Hebrew understanding, it is perfectly natural to regard the agent as the person himself.

Peter's Release from Prison
In Acts 12, the apostle Peter is in jail awaiting execution. An angel appears, wakes him, and leads him past the guards and out through the iron gate, which opened on its own accord. Peter, initially thinking he was seeing a vision, followed the angel to safety. When he arrived at the house where the church was praying for him, he told them his incredible story — and what he said was that the Lord had led him out of prison (v.17). So who actually freed Peter? The text says both the angel and the Lord did. The Lord sent the angel to do the actual work, but to the Hebrew mind it was really the Lord who rescued Peter. The agent acts as the principal.

Further Old Testament Examples
In Genesis 31:11-13, Jacob tells his wives that the angel of God said to him in a dream, "I am the God of Bethel." Here again an angel speaks as though he were God himself, using the first person without hesitation. In the following chapter, Jacob wrestles with a man until dawn, and afterward declares that he has seen God face to face (Gen. 32:24-30). Some have suggested this was the pre-existent Christ appearing in human form, but the prophet Hosea settles the matter in 12:3-4, identifying the figure as the angel. The one called both "a man" and "God" in Genesis is simply the angel — a perfect example of Jewish agency where the agent is considered as the principal.

Exodus 7 provides another instructive case. God tells Moses that He Himself will strike the Nile with the staff in His own hand (v.17), yet just two verses later He instructs Moses to have Aaron stretch out his hand to do it (v.19). Aaron holds the rod; Aaron acts as God's agent, standing in the very place of God himself. So completely is the agent identified with the principal that Moses and Aaron are described as elohim — God — to Pharaoh. This same dynamic explains the translation difficulties surrounding Exodus 21:6, where some versions render the Hebrew elohim as "judges" and others as "God." Both renderings are correct. The judges of Israel represented God as His agents and were therefore called elohim. A vow made before them was a binding vow made before God Himself.

The account of Gideon in Judges 6:11-22 is equally instructive. The angel of the LORD sits under an oak tree and greets Gideon, but when the text describes the angel looking at him, it says that the LORD looked at him and spoke. The angel uses the first-person voice of God throughout the exchange. Yet Gideon himself is not confused. When the angel vanishes, Gideon exclaims, "I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face" (v.22). He knows it was an angel, not God Himself — for the Scriptures are perfectly clear that no one has ever seen God (John 1:18; 1 Timothy 6:16; 1 John 4:12). All confusion dissolves when the Hebrew law of agency is understood: a person's agent is regarded as the person himself.

Deuteronomy 29 provides perhaps the clearest illustration of the principle as it applies to human agents. Moses is preaching to Israel, recounting everything God has done for them, speaking about God in the third person. Then in verse 6, mid-sermon, Moses shifts without warning to the first person and says, "I am the LORD your God." God is not personally addressing the people. Moses is preaching. But Moses, as God's appointed agent, can speak as though he were the Lord Himself. God speaks through His representative, and the voice of the representative becomes the voice of God.

A New Testament Example: The Centurion's Servant
The Principle of Agency also resolves an apparent contradiction in the Gospels. In Matthew 8:5-13, the Centurion himself comes to Jesus and pleads for his servant to be healed. In Luke 7:1-10, however, it is made clear that the Centurion did not go in person but sent Jewish elders as his agents to speak to Jesus on his behalf. Did the Gospel writers get confused? Not at all. Matthew, writing in the Hebrew idiom, places the Centurion himself before Jesus — because the agents he sent were acting as him. The elders stood before Jesus as though the Centurion himself stood there. This is the Hebrew mind at work, and it is entirely consistent.

Jesus as the Ultimate Agent
Some scholars have attempted to identify the angel of the LORD throughout the Old Testament as Jesus Christ in His pre-existence. Hebrews 1:1-2 directly addresses this: "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son." The Son did not speak in Old Testament times. God spoke then in various ways — through prophets, visions, and angels — and it is only since Jesus was born of Mary and appeared in history that God has spoken in His Son. Acts 7:53, Galatians 3:19, and Hebrews 2:2 all confirm that the earlier revelations came through angels, not through Christ.

Exodus 23:20-23 sheds further light on how the principle works. God says to Israel, "Behold, I send an angel before you... for my name is in him." This angel was to stand in the place of God for Israel — to speak God's words, to go before them, and to express God's very name. If this was true of a mere angel of the Lord, how much more is it true of the Son of God? Jesus claimed to represent God as no other before or after him. He claimed to be the unique spokesman of the Father, to act in total accord and harmony with God, and to be the Son and appointed agent of the Father.

This is why he could say, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30), and "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9), and in his high priestly prayer, "This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3). For the disciples, Jesus stood in the place of God. He spoke God's words, proclaimed God's truth, and pronounced His judgments. Yet he remained distinct from the Father, as Acts 2:22 makes plain: "Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him." Jesus had every right to claim to be God — because God was in him, doing His works. This is the Hebrew Principle of Agency at its highest and fullest expression.

Very well written and presented.

Armour of God · May 17, 2026

Pierac said:
Agency
The foundation of our Bible is the Old Testament. It contains the first three-quarters of Scripture, and it stands to reason that if we misunderstand this Hebrew foundation, we build a system of error. The art of successful reading is generally to let the last quarter of a book agree with the first three-quarters. As the grand finale of the Bible, the New Testament agrees with and is consistent with its Old Testament heritage. In order to understand its message we must become familiar with the thought-forms, the idioms, the culture and the customs of those who lived in Biblical times.

H. N. Snaith, in his book The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament, writes that Christianity has tended to suffer from a translation out of the Prophets and into Plato, and that the reinterpretation of Biblical theology in terms of Greek philosophical ideas has been both widespread throughout the centuries and everywhere destructive to the essence of the Christian faith. Snaith goes further, arguing that if his thesis is correct, then neither Catholic nor Protestant theology is genuinely based on Biblical theology. In each case, Christian theology has been dominated by Greek thought. He contends that there can be no right theology until we come to a clear view of the distinctive ideas of both Old and New Testaments and their differences from the pagan ideas that have so largely dominated Christian thought.

According to many scholars, a great deal of Bible confusion can be cleared up by understanding what is known as the Principle of Agency.

The Principle of Agency
A common feature of the Hebrew Bible is the concept — some even call it the law — of Jewish agency. All Old Testament scholars and commentators recognize that in Jewish custom, whenever a superior commissioned an agent to act on his behalf, the agent was regarded as the person himself. This is well expressed in the Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion. Whenever an agent was sent to act for his master, it was as though that lord himself was acting and speaking. An equivalent in our own culture would be one who is authorized to act as Power of Attorney, or more precisely, Enduring Power of Attorney.

Moses and the Burning Bush
In the story of Moses and the burning bush in Exodus 3, the text states that God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" (v.4). Verse 6 is even more striking when the same speaker says, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Surely, one might say, it was Yahweh himself who appeared and personally spoke. Yet verse 2 prefaces the entire narrative by stating that "the angel of the LORD appeared" to Moses from the midst of the bush.

The martyr Stephen, described as a man filled with the Holy Spirit, provides the clearest commentary on this incident. In Acts 7:30-33 he states plainly that it was an angel who appeared to Moses in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush, and that as Moses approached, there came the voice of the Lord saying, "I am the God of your father." This is a clear example of agency. It is an angel who appears and speaks, yet the angel speaks for God in the first person. The angel of the Lord says, "I am God." The agent is distinguished from God yet identified with him. In Hebrew understanding, it is perfectly natural to regard the agent as the person himself.

Peter's Release from Prison
In Acts 12, the apostle Peter is in jail awaiting execution. An angel appears, wakes him, and leads him past the guards and out through the iron gate, which opened on its own accord. Peter, initially thinking he was seeing a vision, followed the angel to safety. When he arrived at the house where the church was praying for him, he told them his incredible story — and what he said was that the Lord had led him out of prison (v.17). So who actually freed Peter? The text says both the angel and the Lord did. The Lord sent the angel to do the actual work, but to the Hebrew mind it was really the Lord who rescued Peter. The agent acts as the principal.

Further Old Testament Examples
In Genesis 31:11-13, Jacob tells his wives that the angel of God said to him in a dream, "I am the God of Bethel." Here again an angel speaks as though he were God himself, using the first person without hesitation. In the following chapter, Jacob wrestles with a man until dawn, and afterward declares that he has seen God face to face (Gen. 32:24-30). Some have suggested this was the pre-existent Christ appearing in human form, but the prophet Hosea settles the matter in 12:3-4, identifying the figure as the angel. The one called both "a man" and "God" in Genesis is simply the angel — a perfect example of Jewish agency where the agent is considered as the principal.

Exodus 7 provides another instructive case. God tells Moses that He Himself will strike the Nile with the staff in His own hand (v.17), yet just two verses later He instructs Moses to have Aaron stretch out his hand to do it (v.19). Aaron holds the rod; Aaron acts as God's agent, standing in the very place of God himself. So completely is the agent identified with the principal that Moses and Aaron are described as elohim — God — to Pharaoh. This same dynamic explains the translation difficulties surrounding Exodus 21:6, where some versions render the Hebrew elohim as "judges" and others as "God." Both renderings are correct. The judges of Israel represented God as His agents and were therefore called elohim. A vow made before them was a binding vow made before God Himself.

The account of Gideon in Judges 6:11-22 is equally instructive. The angel of the LORD sits under an oak tree and greets Gideon, but when the text describes the angel looking at him, it says that the LORD looked at him and spoke. The angel uses the first-person voice of God throughout the exchange. Yet Gideon himself is not confused. When the angel vanishes, Gideon exclaims, "I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face" (v.22). He knows it was an angel, not God Himself — for the Scriptures are perfectly clear that no one has ever seen God (John 1:18; 1 Timothy 6:16; 1 John 4:12). All confusion dissolves when the Hebrew law of agency is understood: a person's agent is regarded as the person himself.

Deuteronomy 29 provides perhaps the clearest illustration of the principle as it applies to human agents. Moses is preaching to Israel, recounting everything God has done for them, speaking about God in the third person. Then in verse 6, mid-sermon, Moses shifts without warning to the first person and says, "I am the LORD your God." God is not personally addressing the people. Moses is preaching. But Moses, as God's appointed agent, can speak as though he were the Lord Himself. God speaks through His representative, and the voice of the representative becomes the voice of God.

A New Testament Example: The Centurion's Servant
The Principle of Agency also resolves an apparent contradiction in the Gospels. In Matthew 8:5-13, the Centurion himself comes to Jesus and pleads for his servant to be healed. In Luke 7:1-10, however, it is made clear that the Centurion did not go in person but sent Jewish elders as his agents to speak to Jesus on his behalf. Did the Gospel writers get confused? Not at all. Matthew, writing in the Hebrew idiom, places the Centurion himself before Jesus — because the agents he sent were acting as him. The elders stood before Jesus as though the Centurion himself stood there. This is the Hebrew mind at work, and it is entirely consistent.

Jesus as the Ultimate Agent
Some scholars have attempted to identify the angel of the LORD throughout the Old Testament as Jesus Christ in His pre-existence. Hebrews 1:1-2 directly addresses this: "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son." The Son did not speak in Old Testament times. God spoke then in various ways — through prophets, visions, and angels — and it is only since Jesus was born of Mary and appeared in history that God has spoken in His Son. Acts 7:53, Galatians 3:19, and Hebrews 2:2 all confirm that the earlier revelations came through angels, not through Christ.

Exodus 23:20-23 sheds further light on how the principle works. God says to Israel, "Behold, I send an angel before you... for my name is in him." This angel was to stand in the place of God for Israel — to speak God's words, to go before them, and to express God's very name. If this was true of a mere angel of the Lord, how much more is it true of the Son of God? Jesus claimed to represent God as no other before or after him. He claimed to be the unique spokesman of the Father, to act in total accord and harmony with God, and to be the Son and appointed agent of the Father.
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The way I understand it is that the son and the father are two different entities but with the same nature

Stumpmaster · May 17, 2026

Armour of God said:
The way I understand it is that the son and the father are two different entities but with the same nature

The Word made flesh. Same God, different form.

Php 2:5-6 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, (6) who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,

MatthewG · May 17, 2026

Jesus talks about sitting on a throne with his Fathwr after all things had been complete I believe this shows Yahweh his Word (Jesus), back together again as one known as the Lord God Almighty.

All in proper order with Jesus being subjected to his Father.

I stopped watch people teaching the trinity and stuff. I just kind of go off what I see by the bible and go from there…

Wrangler · May 17, 2026

Pierac said:
Jesus as the Ultimate Agent
Some scholars have attempted to identify the angel of the LORD throughout the Old Testament as Jesus Christ in His pre-existence. Hebrews 1:1-2 directly addresses this: "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son." The Son did not speak in Old Testament times.

Brilliant! :Broadly:

Wrangler · May 17, 2026

Pierac said:
He claimed to be the unique spokesman of the Father, to act in total accord and harmony with God, and to be the Son and appointed agent of the Father.

Trinitarians deny the appointment and the implications of the man who was appointment. Acts 17:31

For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Justified · May 17, 2026

Pierac said:
This is why he could say, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30), and "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9), and in his high priestly prayer, "This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3). For the disciples, Jesus stood in the place of God. He spoke God's words, proclaimed God's truth, and pronounced His judgments. Yet he remained distinct from the Father, as Acts 2:22 makes plain: "Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him." Jesus had every right to claim to be God — because God was in him, doing His works. This is the Hebrew Principle of Agency at its highest and fullest expression.

Jesus had every right to claim to be God, because he was God, as the eternal Son. Proof-texting almost always leads to wrong conclusions because it ignores so much other context. Posting a few verses from John's gospel, for example, without taking into account his prologue and many other things throughout the gospel, including in the very passages of the verses you gave, leads to wrong conclusions.

The entire point of John's prologue is to introduce us to who Jesus is as the Son of God:

Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:2 He was in the beginning with God.
Joh 1:3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
...
Joh 1:9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
Joh 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
...
Joh 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Joh 1:15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”)

There is no other way to understand that than the Son has always existed because he is also God in nature.

Joh 5:18 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.

Joh 6:33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
…
Joh 6:38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.
…
Joh 6:48 I am the bread of life.
Joh 6:49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
Joh 6:50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
...
Joh 6:58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

Joh 8:23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
...
Joh 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Joh 10:30 I and the Father are one.”
Joh 10:31 The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
Joh 10:32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?”
Joh 10:33 The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
Joh 10:34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?
Joh 10:35 If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—
Joh 10:36 do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

Joh 12:44 And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me.
Joh 12:45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.
Joh 12:46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

Joh 13:3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,

Joh 16:27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
Joh 16:28 I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
Joh 16:29 His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech!
Joh 16:30 Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.”

Joh 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Joh 17:4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
Joh 17:5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

Joh 20:28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

That's not everything, but more than sufficient to show that Jesus claimed to be God and to have come from heaven, which is why John could then state that he was the agent of creation and why Thomas could exclaim that Jesus was his Lord and his God. From beginning to end, John's gospel shows that Jesus, as the Son of God, is both truly God and truly man.

Appealing to Heb. 1:1-2 also means ignoring some significant context within that chapter, namely, verse 10-12:

Heb 1:8 But of the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
...
Heb 1:10 And, "You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;
Heb 1:11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment,
Heb 1:12 like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end."

But that is a quote from the OT speaking of Yahweh:

Psa 102:25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
Psa 102:26 They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
Psa 102:27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.

Notice that the Father says of the Son. In other words, the Father is applying a passage about Yahweh to the Son, effectively saying that Psa. 102:25-27 are speaking of the Son.

And, if you want to appeal to a verse, as you did with Heb. 1:2, then quote the whole thing:

Heb 1:2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

That is in complete agreement with verses 10-12, as well as John 1:3, 1 Cor. 8:6, and Col. 1:16-17.

The doctrine of the Trinity is the best explanation of all that God reveals of himself in Scripture, with the Son being truly God, having been then born in the flesh as Jesus.

Justified · May 17, 2026

Wrangler said:
Trinitarians deny the appointment and the implications of the man who was appointment. Acts 17:31

For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Point out where any Trinitarian has denied this. Your continual straw man arguments show that you really don't understand the doctrine of the Trinity.

The main problem for you, and all who deny the Trinity, is that God cannot be love, as John states he is in 1 John 4:8, 16:

1Jn 4:8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
...
1Jn 4:16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (ESV)

To say that God is love is the same as saying God is spirit; love is intrinsic to his nature. That is, to say God is love is to make a statement about his essence, his nature, and not merely the idea that he is loving; He cannot not love.

So, what then is love? At its fullest, it is both a healthy love of self and an outward expression and action towards others. We should fully expect then, that if God is love, that his love must have the fullest expression and necessarily includes love of others from before creation of all time and space, from “eternity past.” However, if God is a monad (one person), then to say that “God is love” means 1) that God only loved himself, and 2) that the fullest and proper expression of his love is dependent on creation. This contradicts the statement that “God is love” and leaves His love, and therefore his nature as God, incomplete and deficient.

When we consider the Trinity, however, it all works. There are three persons each being truly and fully God, equally possessing the full and undivided essence (one being that is God), having been in an intimate, loving relationship and communion for eternity past, that is, prior to creation. Only now we can truly say that God is love.

John already told us in the first verse of his gospel that the Word was in an interpersonal relationship with God (1:1b), meaning the existence of at least two distinct persons and had existed prior to the beginning (1:1a), meaning he is just as eternal as the Father. The conclusion of which can only mean that the Word is also God in nature (1:1c). John's message about who Jesus is, as the Son of God and in relation to the Father, is consistent throughout his writings.

Wrangler · May 17, 2026

Justified said:
The main problem for you, and all who deny the Trinity, is that God cannot be love,

This is the most nonsensical post that I have ever read AS IF two things can't be true at the same time. God is love AND Jesus was a man appointed according to Scripture.

Why did Jesus pray to himself?

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Agency​

The Principle of Agency​

Moses and the Burning Bush​

Peter's Release from Prison​

Further Old Testament Examples​

A New Testament Example: The Centurion's Servant​

Jesus as the Ultimate Agent​

Well-Known Member

Agency​

The Principle of Agency​

Moses and the Burning Bush​

Peter's Release from Prison​

Further Old Testament Examples​

A New Testament Example: The Centurion's Servant​

Jesus as the Ultimate Agent​

Well-Known Member

Agency​

The Principle of Agency​

Moses and the Burning Bush​

Peter's Release from Prison​

Further Old Testament Examples​

A New Testament Example: The Centurion's Servant​

Jesus as the Ultimate Agent​

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Well-Known Member

Jesus as the Ultimate Agent​

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