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  1. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    ”Within the Christian tradition the New Testament has long been read through the prism of the later conciliar creeds ... Speaking of Jesus as the Son of God had a very different connotation in the first century from that which it has had ever since Nicea. Talk of Jesus’ preexistence [in the...
  2. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    Jesus had spoken of resurrection as conferring endless life, the life of the coming age, on those who follow him (John 8:51). It is possible that Jesus counters their question about him seeing Abraham - as if the Messiah were a contemporary of Abraham, which both he and they knew the Messiah...
  3. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    “Jesus has been emphasizing his Messianic claim. He does not say that before Abraham was born the logos existed; he says ‘I am.’ It is Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the man whom the Father had consecrated to the Messianic work who speaks. Just before this he had spoken of ‘my day,’ which Abraham saw...
  4. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    In John 8:58 Jesus doesn’t say that he saw Abraham; he claims to be superior to Abraham. I skipped over the bulk of the conversation to get to the last three verses but we should keep in mind that the unbelieving Jews had placed a great deal of emphasis on how they were descendants of Abraham...
  5. Matthias

    Bible reading plans

    “There is enough dust on some of your Bibles to write ‘damnation with your fingers.” - Charles Spurgeon I don’t want to be counted with those who are in that situation and I don’t want my readers to be either. It’s now the 9th day of January. If you thought about using a Bible reading plan but...
  6. Matthias

    QUOTE for the day

    “God is more full of mercy than the sun is full of light.” - Thomas Watson
  7. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    I have one more item that I need to address, and that is how I believe, as a Jewish monotheist, that Jesus of Nazareth, a fellow Jewish monotheist, is before Abraham. I’ll do that sometime tomorrow. Of course I will also reply to any questions that members of the forum may want to ask me.
  8. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    “There never was a time that he came into being.” Trinitarians, binitarians and the majority of unitarians hold this to be true. The position of believing Jewish monotheists is that he was brought into being when he was miraculously begotten by his God and Father and conceived in the womb of...
  9. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    Let’s look again at what Jesus said in 8:56 -> “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad.” Jesus didn’t say that he had seen Abraham. He said only that Abraham had seen his day. But what did the angry unbelieving Jewish monotheists say in 8:57? -> “… and have you...
  10. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    “The identification of Jesus’ I am statements with the I am of Exodus I believe to be a misreading of the text. Of the I am sayings in this Gospel, those with the predicate ‘I am the bread of life,’ ‘the door,’ ‘the way,’ ‘the good shepherd, etc. certainly do not imply that the subject is God...
  11. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    “That the absolute use of ‘I am’ need not have connotations of divinity is clear from its usage by the man born blind at John 9:9, Jesus’ words, then, were not an unambiguous asseveration of divinity.” (H.H. Rowden, Christ the Lord, p. 172)
  12. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    “‘I am he’ is a claim to be the Messiah and implies neither divinity nor preexistence: ‘Before Abraham’s coming, I am he,’ that is, the promised Messiah. The simple phrase ‘I am’ is used by Jesus 15 times, and in every case (but the present, John 8:58) it is rendered in the Common Version ‘I am...
  13. Matthias

    The happy thread was dead. Long live the happy thread!

    * Any Day Now. That could be good or bad. I’m going to increase my life insurance and stay positive. *
  14. Matthias

    The happy thread was dead. Long live the happy thread!

    * I won’t do what it would take for me to accept an invitation to that. *
  15. Matthias

    John 8:56-59

    “… Jesus did not say: ‘Before Abraham, I was’ but ‘Before Abraham, I am.’” An important point, and one that I fully agree with. Barclay continues: ”Here is the claim that Jesus is timeless. There never was a time when he came into being; there never will be a time when he is not in being.”...