In our image..

[face2face]

@Enoch111 do you know how many are in a legion?

 

[face2face]

Would that number be "plural" enough for you?

 

[face2face]

I particularly like Psalms 103:20

Scripture refers to:

Jacob wrestling with God.
Moses talking face to face with God

And at the same time, it clearly states “No man hath seen God at any time” as per 1 John 4:12.

None has seen the great Increate, the El of the heavens, Yahweh Himself! Who dwells in unapproachable light but many have seen manifestations of His power and glory in the Elohim, or His angels.

Yes @Enoch111 they were His willing ministers at the time of Creation - the Heavenly Family - Many beings working with one purpose!

Sound familiar? Galatians 3:28

 

[face2face]

@Enoch111

The Elohim of Genesis 32:30 is described as an angel by Hosea 12:3-4

Here is a challenge for you seeing you boast in understanding the use of Elohim

Why, then, the use of the plural noun throughout Genesis?

Boy, if that doesn't get your mind working nothing will!

It's an easy answer if you understand how God (Yahweh) works!

 

[Jack]

I wonder how many people have Jack on ignore? Be interesting to run a survey - rather embarrassing really. I would feel some pity for him if it wasn't for his obsession with JW's. Why not the Mormons - now that would make more sense!

Why do my questions upset JW's?

 

[Aunty Jane]

That is why Christ ------ continues for eternity in human form.

Can you provide scripture for this assertion? Humans cannot exist in the spirit realm....which is why Christ was raised by his Father in spirit form (1 Peter 3:18)....he would need spirit "form".....you know, the "form" Yahweh has, in order to exist in the heavenly realm.
Humans are air breathers, confined to planet Earth which supplies their every material need.

As to the use of "our" it is further evidence that God is three in one -- the triune Godhead or the Trinity. And the Hebrew word for God -- Elohim -- is in fact a plural word. All Hebrew nouns which end in "-im" indicate plurality such as seraph (singular) and seraphim (plural).

There is the plural of majesty....the royal "WE"....and besides the scriptures plainly tell us that God was not alone in creation....all creation came "through" the agency of God's Son, (Colossians 1:15-17; John 1:2-3) like an architect creates a building through or by means of a construction company....there is only one Creator and the scriptures never call Jesus by that designation.

Only for Anti-Trinitarians. So why did you fail to explain why God is in the plural form. Because the minute you would explain it honestly, you would have to admit to the truth of the Trinity.

That is nonsense....
If you want to believe that there are three gods, Enoch, you go ahead...no one is saying you can't believe whatever you wish....but believing it doesn't make it true.....the majority of Jews thought Jesus was a fake Messiah....were they right? They thought so....convinced enough to curse themselves and their children with his blood. (Matthew 27:25)

The Jews did not believe in a trinity, and the first Christians were all Jewish.....Jesus himself was Jewish, so it would have been blasphemy to claim to be God incarnate. He only ever said he was "the Son of God"....never once is he called..."God the Son".

 

[Dropship]

There are white, brown, black and yellow humans, so which of those races is made in God's image?

 

[L.A.M.B.]

ALL creation are made in the image of God.

Someone mentioned God's form, it is as our physical atanomy except without the blood ; in that he has a head, a torso, hands and feet. There is scripture to back all these parts up.
1. Hand; 2 Chronicles 32:15 / 17
; Isaiah 62:3
; Job 12:6
; Ezekiel 20:5
; Ect.........
2. Foot; even the angels were created in God's image Revelation 10:1-3.
; Luke 20:43
; Psalms 99:5
; Acts 7:49
; Ect..........
Arms / ears Isaiah 59:1

Do some simple research to find our counterparts of God's physicality.

Skin is made up of layers and the color is only pigmentation. Cut past that and we all bleed the same blood. Humanity is God's creation, all humanity, there are no rejects based on skin color; ONLY UNBELIEF !

 

[Earburner]

We know that God Isn't begotten, the word begotten means, to produce, to bring into existence. Humans produce by procreation God produces or brings into existence by creating. The angels are spirit beings and God begot them by creating each one into existence.
We also know that no one produced God or brought him into existence.YHWH God is the only True God and is the creator of all things.
In scripture the apostle John repeatedly describes the Lord Jesus Christ as the only-begotten Son of God. (John 1:14; 3:16, 18; 1John 4:9) This is not referring to his human birth or to him as just the man Jesus. As the Logos, or Word, “this one was in the beginning with God,” even “before the world was.” (John 1:1, 2; 17:5, 24) At that time while in his prehuman state of existence, he is described as the “only-begotten Son” whom his Father sent “into the world" at 1John 4:9.

In the KJV, "begotten" is alot different than "brought forth" in Proverbs 8:22-31.
To be "brought forth" from "everlasting", is to be "brought forth" out from the eternity of God Himself, of which also establishes the eternal Being of Jesus, before the world was created.

 

[Earburner]

Can you provide scripture for this assertion? Humans cannot exist in the spirit realm....which is why Christ was raised by his Father in spirit form (1 Peter 3:18)....he would need spirit "form".....you know, the "form" Yahweh has, in order to exist in the heavenly realm.
Humans are air breathers, confined to planet Earth which supplies their every material need.


There is the plural of majesty....the royal "WE"....and besides the scriptures plainly tell us that God was not alone in creation....all creation came "through" the agency of God's Son, (Colossians 1:15-17; John 1:2-3) like an architect creates a building through or by means of a construction company....there is only one Creator and the scriptures never call Jesus by that designation.


That is nonsense....
If you want to believe that there are three gods, Enoch, you go ahead...no one is saying you can't believe whatever you wish....but believing it doesn't make it true.....the majority of Jews thought Jesus was a fake Messiah....were they right? They thought so....convinced enough to curse themselves and their children with his blood. (Matthew 27:25)

The Jews did not believe in a trinity, and the the first Christians were all Jewish.....Jesus himself was Jewish, so it would have been blasphemy to claim to be God incarnate. He only ever said he was "the Son of God"....never once is he called..."God the Son".

I agree. There is no third Person of the Godhead of Two.
God the Father within Jesus, being One, is their reality and function of being Holy Spirit together.
KJV John 1[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

[14] 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,) full of grace and truth.

 

[BARNEY BRIGHT]

In the KJV, "begotten" is alot different than "brought forth" in Proverbs 8:22-31.
To be "brought forth" from "everlasting", is to be "brought forth" out from the eternity of God Himself, of which also establishes the eternal being of Jesus, before the world was created.

I understand and that's your opinion. However Jesus himself spoke of his prehuman heavenly life. (John 3:13; 6:38, 62; 8:23, 42, 58) John chapter 1:1&2 says: “In the beginning the Word(Logos) was, and the Word was with God. This one was in the beginning with God.” Since YHWH God is eternal and had no beginning (Psalm 90:2; Revelation 15:3), the Word's being with God from “the beginning” here refers to the beginning of YHWH God creative works. This is confirmed by other texts identifying Jesus as “the firstborn of all creation,” “the beginning of the creation by God.” (Colossians 1:15; Revelations 1:1; 3:14) So the Scriptures identify the Word (Jesus in his prehuman existence) as God’s first creation, his firstborn Son. The point is YHWH God has no beginning, the scriptures show that Jesus who is YHWH God only begotten Son, had a beginning. Colossians 1:15; Revelations 1:1; 3:14

 

[Behold]

Perhaps we can therefore speculate that "in our image and our likeness"
PS- Incidentally why did God use the plural "our" in Gen 1:26, why didn't he say "in my image"?

The reason that Genesis teaches "OUR" image is the basis for the doctrine of the "Trinity".

The "OUR" is God and the Word, who is Jesus Pre-Incarnate. John 1.

"Likeness" means...>"Like US"...... This is righteousness and eternal life, which Adam had, being made in "Our IMAGE"< until he lost that by following his own will.

Jesus the 2nd Adam, lived and died Sinless, and this LIFE, is exchanged for our sin and ourselves......which is "the Gift of Salvation", and "the Gift of Righteousness".

There is a DIVINE EXCHANGE that happens when we go to the CROSS believing in Jesus.
God exchanges the life of Christ, this HOLY LIFE, for our unholy life. And Jesus becomes our SIN, and we the believers become .."The Righteousness of God, IN Christ".

This is the "New Creation, in Christ". This is the born again Spirit that is become the SON/Daughter of God.

 

[Earburner]

I understand and that's your opinion. However Jesus himself spoke of his prehuman heavenly life. (John 3:13; 6:38, 62; 8:23, 42, 58) John chapter 1:1&2 says: “In the beginning the Word(Logos) was, and the Word was with God. This one was in the beginning with God.” Since YHWH God is eternal and had no beginning (Psalm 90:2; Revelation 15:3), the Word's being with God from “the beginning” here refers to the beginning of YHWH God creative works. This is confirmed by other texts identifying Jesus as “the firstborn of all creation,” “the beginning of the creation by God.” (Colossians 1:15; Revelations 1:1; 3:14) So the Scriptures identify the Word (Jesus in his prehuman existence) as God’s first creation, his firstborn Son. The point is YHWH God has no beginning, the scriptures show that Jesus who is YHWH God only begotten Son, had a beginning. Colossians 1:15; Revelations 1:1; 3:14

KJV Colossians 1:10-18
First and foremost, the context squarely surrounds the resurrection of Christ and the results after it.
[14] In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:[15] Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

I see all of it to be in association with Jesus as being himself the first resurrection, and therefore He is:
the Firstborn from the dead.
the Firstborn of many brethren.
the Firstborn of every [New] creature.

 

[Aunty Jane]

Someone mentioned God's form, it is as our physical atanomy except without the blood

Is this assertion based on Jesus materializing human form to convince his apostles that he was indeed resurrected?
Luke 24:36-39.......
"While they were speaking of these things, he himself stood in their midst and said to them: “May you have peace.” 37 But because they were terrified and frightened, they imagined that they were seeing a spirit. 38 So he said to them: “Why are you troubled, and why have doubts come up in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones just as you see that I have.”

"Flesh and bones" but no blood?
Do you understand why Jesus had to appear to his apostles in human form?
It was against God's law to communicate with spirits. All forms of spiritism were forbidden.......because spirits who wanted to communicate with humans (to deceive them) were demons. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12) The demons were very active when Jesus walked the earth, as the scriptures tell us....

And even though Jesus was resurrected as a "spirit", (1 Peter 3:18) like all spirit creatures who appeared to God's human servants, they had to materialize in human form because of God's law. This was a protection for his people.....if Jesus had been an apparition, (Matthew 14:26) it would have been contrary to God's law for them to communicate with him. They were fearful.

If you remember back to the time of Noah, rebellious angels materialized and took human women to have relations with them....they were so completely human, that they even produced offspring, who had no right to exist. God took drastic measures to eliminate these monstrous beings who were bringing the human race to a level of wickedness that was not in accord with God's purpose.....so rather than just destroying these creatures as he could have done, he used the situation to illustrate something important to all of God's worshippers down to this day.
Matthew 24:37-39...
"For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. 38 For as they were in those days before the Flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39 and they took no note until the Flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be."

And here we are in that situation today in this time when Jesus was to return....immorality and violence permeate everything that humans love in this world....even their entertainment is saturated with it, desensitizing children at a very early age. Everything that offends God is brought to the forefront.

It also illustrates that being a servant of God can be testing as to how hard we are prepared to work to save ourselves and our family from a disaster that God was going to bring on the world......he is about to do it again, but this time it won't be a flood.

How long do we imagine it took Noah to construct the ark from scratch, using only the raw materials he had access to at that time?
God did not save Noah....but he instructed him carefully about how to save himself....there is a lesson there for us too. It required great effort in the face of opposition and ridicule....but "Noah did just so".

in that he has a head, a torso, hands and feet. There is scripture to back all these parts up.

This is 'personification' of the Almighty to help lessen the enormous gulf between humans and our Creator. He presents himself in human terms to help us to see him as a loving Father in whom we can place our implicit trust. He uses human terms to describe his relationship with his "firstborn" son. He calls the angels "sons of God" but these are spirits who have no human form unless they materialize. When their assignment was completed they dematerialized and returned to the spirit realm......Jesus did too. Beings of flesh cannot exist outside of Earth's atmosphere without life support. Jesus was 'caught away in a cloud' as he ascended to his Father....his disciples did not see him dematerialize...but he could not take his fleshly body to heaven.

Do some simple research to find our counterparts of God's physicality.

The descriptions are not literal but figurative. He is an eternal spirit, so he has no physical form.

 

[Wrangler]

I particularly like ... Jacob wrestling with God.

You might like this Jacob wrestling with the angel - Wikipedia

Jacob wrestling with the angel is described in Genesis (32:22–32; also referenced in Hosea 12:3–5)

 

[Aunty Jane]

I agree. There is no third Person of the Godhead of Two.
God the Father within Jesus, being One, is their reality and function of being Holy Spirit together.

There is no doubt that the Father, the son and the holy spirit are all involved in our spiritual journey to salvation, but nowhere are the three said to be "one God". The apostles confirmed that their "one God" was Yahweh..."the Father". (1 Corinthians 8:5-6) Yahweh is the Father of Jesus as well as us, and hence the Lord's Prayer was addressed to "OUR Father". Yahweh is still his God, even in heaven. (Revelation 3:12)
Jesus himself called his Father "the only true God" (John 17:3) without including himself....and said he was "sent" by his Father.

KJV John 1[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

[14] 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,) full of grace and truth.

Well, since the KJV is a translation of the original Koine Greek, what does it say by comparison?
Is that an accurate translation of John 1:1?
Here it is from the Mounce Interlinear....
You can see here a word for word translation into English.....

"1 In en the beginning archē was eimi the ho Word logos, and kai the ho Word logos was eimi with pros · ho God theos, and kai the ho Word logos was eimi God theos. . . . .

Do you notice the word "ho" in that verse four times?.......it means "the" as we can all see.....but when it comes to the one nameless God of the Jews, the Greeks identified him with the definite article "ho", calling him "THE God" to distinguish him from all other gods. (The Greeks were polytheists and all their gods had names. The one God of the Jews, at that time, did not.)

Tell me where you see the "ho" in connection with "theos" (god) in that verse. And then tell me why it was not rendered in any English translation used by trinitarians....? To do so would have changed the entire meaning of the verse. The apostles did not believe that Jesus was God. (1 Corinthians 8:5-6) Jesus himself said that he was "the beginning of God's creation" (Revelation 3:14)
There is only one reference to "THE God" (ho theos) in verse 1, but the second reference has no definite article, and is rendered "a god" in other Bible verses. There is no reason for the discrepancy except to mask the true identity of the Word.

So now verse 14 tells us something other than what trinitarians have come to believe....
"14 And kai the ho Word logos became ginomai flesh sarx and kai dwelt skēnoō among en us hēmeis, and kai we gazed theaomai on · ho his autos glory doxa, glory doxa as hōs of the only monogenēs Son from para the Father patēr, full plērēs of grace charis and kai truth alētheia."
It was the Word "ho logos" (God's spokesman) who became flesh, not "ho theos".

I don't believe that these verses are saying what trinitarians want to believe. And God's word does not contradict itself....as far as I can see, the trinity contradicts God's word.

 

[face2face]

You might like this Jacob wrestling with the angel - Wikipedia

Jacob wrestling with the angel is described in Genesis (32:22–32; also referenced in Hosea 12:3–5)

The proximity of the terms "man" and "God" in the text in some Christian commentaries has also been taken as suggestive of a Christophany. J. Douglas MacMillan (1991) suggests that the angel with whom Jacob wrestles is a "pre-incarnation appearance of Christ in the form of a man."

Laughable!

If only they knew the deeper meaning to the text!

 

[Jack]

I understand and that's your opinion. However Jesus himself spoke of his prehuman heavenly life. (John 3:13; 6:38, 62; 8:23, 42, 58) John chapter 1:1&2 says: “In the beginning the Word(Logos) was, and the Word was with God. This one was in the beginning with God.” Since YHWH God is eternal and had no beginning (Psalm 90:2; Revelation 15:3), the Word's being with God from “the beginning” here refers to the beginning of YHWH God creative works. This is confirmed by other texts identifying Jesus as “the firstborn of all creation,” “the beginning of the creation by God.” (Colossians 1:15; Revelations 1:1; 3:14) So the Scriptures identify the Word (Jesus in his prehuman existence) as God’s first creation, his firstborn Son. The point is YHWH God has no beginning, the scriptures show that Jesus who is YHWH God only begotten Son, had a beginning. Colossians 1:15; Revelations 1:1; 3:14

If God isn't your Savior you don't have a Savior.
Hosea 13
4 You shall know no God but Me; For there is no Savior besides Me.

 

[Jack]

There is no doubt that the Father, the son and the holy spirit are all involved in our spiritual journey to salvation, but nowhere are the three said to be "one God". The apostles confirmed that their "one God" was Yahweh..."the Father". (1 Corinthians 8:5-6) Yahweh is the Father of Jesus as well as us, and hence the Lord's Prayer was addressed to "OUR Father". Yahweh is still his God, even in heaven. (Revelation 3:12)
Jesus himself called his Father "the only true God" (John 17:3) without including himself....and said he was "sent" by his Father.


Well, since the KJV is a translation of the original Koine Greek, what does it say by comparison?
Is that an accurate translation of John 1:1?
Here it is from the Mounce Interlinear....
You can see here a word for word translation into English.....

"1 In en the beginning archē was eimi the ho Word logos, and kai the ho Word logos was eimi with pros · ho God theos, and kai the ho Word logos was eimi God theos. . . . .

Do you notice the word "ho" in that verse four times?.......it means "the" as we can all see.....but when it comes to the one nameless God of the Jews, the Greeks identified him with the definite article "ho", calling him "THE God" to distinguish him from all other gods. (The Greeks were polytheists and all their gods had names. The one God of the Jews, at that time, did not.)

Tell me where you see the "ho" in connection with "theos" (god) in that verse. And then tell me why it was not rendered in any English translation used by trinitarians....? To do so would have changed the entire meaning of the verse. The apostles did not believe that Jesus was God. (1 Corinthians 8:5-6) Jesus himself said that he was "the beginning of God's creation" (Revelation 3:14)
There is only one reference to "THE God" (ho theos) in verse 1, but the second reference has no definite article, and is rendered "a god" in other Bible verses. There is no reason for the discrepancy except to mask the true identity of the Word.

So now verse 14 tells us something other than what trinitarians have come to believe....
"14 And kai the ho Word logos became ginomai flesh sarx and kai dwelt skēnoō among en us hēmeis, and kai we gazed theaomai on · ho his autos glory doxa, glory doxa as hōs of the only monogenēs Son from para the Father patēr, full plērēs of grace charis and kai truth alētheia."
It was the Word "ho logos" (God's spokesman) who became flesh, not "ho theos".

I don't believe that these verses are saying what trinitarians want to believe. And God's word does not contradict itself....as far as I can see, the trinity contradicts God's word.

Why do JW's think they are Bible language experts? Oh that's right, Kingdom Hall told them they are.

 

[TLHKAJ]

If God isn't your Savior you don't have a Savior.
Hosea 13
4 You shall know no God but Me; For there is no Savior besides Me.