Rex said:
So then whats the problem you expressed in your first post.
I was just accused of "disbelief in the Trinity" by a catholic. Though they never provided a link or referenced any of my post, nor ever entertained a discussion with me about it, that leaves the statement rather hollow.
It would seem you don't subscribe to "for lack of a better term" traditional beliefs in the trinity what ever that my mean in itself.
My main concern is all the statements that say no one has seen God the Father in the NT. I don't have a problem with Elohim the plural God in Gen. ether; 26 Then God said, “
Let Us make man in
Our image, according to
Our likeness;
Creation was the work of both Father and Son as we know them from the bible. What are your thoughts. We have already discussed in short the HS and God of all, the distinction in Luke by Gabriel. I really don't see the big deal about invisible God manifest in a visible form with body like a man, and working threw His Spirit. But people get all bent out of shape when you say no one has seen God, yet I can show you at least 5 or 6 NT verses that say just that. So that would indicate the God in the OT that was seen was not the Father.
But the image of the father.
KJV
15
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
NKJV
15
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
ESV
15
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by[
f] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
NRSV
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;
RSV
15 He is the image of the invisible God,
NET
He is the image of the invisible God,
Hi! 'Rex'
Well, I gotta' warn yuh ... this is gonna' be a long read ... better git yerself a coffee an' a kookie first. :)
You wrote: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image'".
I found it quaint that you mentioned this verse ... not because it contains the word "US" ... but because Jesus was the first human to be known to be the "image and likeness" of God. All humankind are born in the image of God, but only the faithful of God will be changed into His likeness.
Anyways, aside from that hurried observation,
I'm assuming that you're claiming that Jesus Himself had pre-existence; that He was somehow present at Creation.
As you undoubtedly know, God is spirit (a spirit being) Who possesses unimaginable strength, faith, imagination, knowledge, wisdom, and creative abilities.
The Word of God is the origin of all things visible and invisible. Again, I remind you of how the gospel of John begins with the words, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. all things were made through Him and without Him was not any thing made that was made".
In the original Greek language, it is referred to as the 'Logos'.
This word 'Logos' has many meanings: speech, calculation, norm, reason, mind, word. In a nutshell, the Logos has to do with the creative thoughts of God; it contains the eternal purposes and intents of God.
This should remind us of the personified 'Wisdom' found in Proverbs 8:1-9. Therefore, we immediately know that 'Wisdom' was present at the creation and this is what is meant by your quoting, "God said "Let us".
In Proverbs 8, personified Wisdom plays with the true knowledge, "I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence; I possess knowledge and discretion".
Further on we read about Wisdom, "I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth"
The personification of 'Wisdom' means that God's eternal wisdom is substantiated in and through His Word. Meaning to say: God's thoughts occurred before His Word; that the Word reveals the contents of God's wisdom ... His unfathomable wisdom. Both the Word and all the Spirit-filled mankind were, from before the foundation of the world, hidden in God. God's thoughts (Word) are being revealed in each fullness of time which will ultimately become known as a complete whole.
The scripture says that the Word was God with the intent of saying that it controls all His thoughts and intentions; the executor to achieve all of God's intentions and purposes.
The Word of God goes out and leads an independent existence. After all, a word always works regardless of the speaker. An example of this is the thoughts and words of the notorious Karl Marx. Although he has long since died, his ideas still inspire millions.
The Word became flesh "All things were made through Him", (Psalm 33:6 and Rom 4:17).
The prophet spoke saying, "So shall my word that from my mouth goes forth; it will not return to Me void, but it will do and accomplish what I please, which I send', (Isaiah 55:11). John described this word as a rider, "He went out conquering and to conquer" (Rev 6:2). The rider sat on a white horse which is an image of the Holy Spirit.
So it was that personified 'Wisdom' was present at Creation. As such, we have a proper perspective concerning the verse, "Let US make man".
Think about it ... about the creative thoughts required by the Creator to create vibration, speed, color spectrum, brightness, light sources. All this had also to consider the human eye, with the growth of plants and animals. God's 'Wisdom' even permitted the Logos to have light be an image of the invisible spiritual world, "Because the life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness",(John 1:4,5). It was only after all these thoughts became balanced that God spoke, "Let there be light!"
The wisdom of God was personified too when it took shape in a human. "Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God", (1Cor 1:30). The Apostle wrote, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we beheld and our hands have the Word of life",(1John 1:1).
The Word is connected to the power of God's Spirit and this was what overshadowed Mary. The seed of God, (His Word), caused Jesus to became flesh in the womb of Mary. The Holy Spirit does not exist independently. It is the hand of God and, as such, always remains connected with the Father. Mary received the seed of God, His Word, through her faith, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, unto me according to your word",(Luke 1:38). With the Son of God being born, the fulfillment of the eternal purpose of God through Jesus Christ begins.
It does not say Jesus was flesh. Instead, the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary saying, "Thou shalt conceive and bear a Son ones and thou shalt call his name Jesus", (Luke 1:31). Neither is it true that Christ became flesh because this was to occur later when Christ was baptized in the Holy Spirit in the Jordan. It as when the Spirit came down as a dove from the heavens upon Jesus that He became the Christ; the Anointed. This is precisely what Peter testified to later saying, "You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, (Acts 10:38).
Neither is it said that God became flesh. No, it is His incorruptible and living seed which became flesh, His Word.
Do I reject the ideas behind the popular doctrine of trinity? Certainly not!
But I do reject the incomprehensible argument that some have proposed concerning it.
The verse of John 5:7 remains true, "For there are three who testify in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one".
Please note that John 5:7 does not make mention of Jesus ... only of the Logos ... which indeed was with God and God Himself.
As a matter of fact, these three (Father, Word and Holy Spirit), are witnesses to the Son.
The Father clearly bore witness from heaven when He declared, "This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased", (Matt 3:17).
Nevertheless, in this very day we Christians can now say, "There are three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Incarnate Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.
The Word Incarnate (Jesus) now testifies: "I have overcome and am now (as the Last Adam a man) seated at the right hand of God".
And, the Holy Spirit testifies that Jesus is the Son of God, truly the Christ. The Holy Spirit also testifies with our spirit that we are destined to be sons of God too.
Deuteronomy 6:4 says, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the Lord is one.
What does this oneness of God mean? Can we speak of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit? Is this contrary to a true concept of God?
At the very outset, I want to say that I wholeheartedly agree with Paul saying, "For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him".
While it's clear that, the faithful of the Old Covenant confessed the unity of God, they were yet unable to truly know Him as He is. They remained unfamiliar with His thoughts and plans, and doubted many times to His good intentions. Consequently, they also trembled repeatedly!
In the fullness of time the Word again went out; loaded full with thoughts and plans of God.
This is mentioned in Zechariah 14:9, which reads: "And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one".
Jesus prayed for His people to the Father saying, " And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one", (John 17:22,23).
God is only fully one when the great destiny for man is completed. This is because the Father as the Creator, His Word as the Savior and the Spirit baptized humanity think and speak and act as one.
So, it is that the Father and the Son are not two ... but ONE.
Yes, I know that many will hurry to quote certain texts supporting the pre-existence of Jesus. To cite a few:
"And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven", (John 3:13).
When Jesus spoke these words, He was the only person in earth who was baptized in the Holy Spirit and who possessed a citizenship, walk, struggle and victory in the unseen world. Jesus said that He had no home on earth, but in heaven. He was the first human species to become a citizen of heaven. As the Word of God, He descended in the flesh.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am", (John 8:58).
During a conversation with the Jews, they had this question, "Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead?" In His answer, Jesus plainly testified that He was the eternal intention of God from the beginnings.
For example, we might ask the question: who was first, the human or the cow?
In the natural world cattle existed prior to the human being. This is because, the eternal counsel of God had cows created for the purposes of (for) the man. Of course, humankind are more than the cow! The cow's creation is inferior to that of humans.
In the same way, while it's true that Abraham was a righteous man, he was not a Spirit filled man
man who possessed a citizenship n the heavenlies. Therefore, Jesus was in God's ultimate plan rather than Abraham.
Our Lord said that no one before him had ascended to heaven. This is because no one before Him possessed a citizenship in the heavenly places, (Eph 2:6). It was Jesus Who opened the kingdom of God to man. It was Jesus Who was the first spiritual man with whom God had communion with by the Holy Spirit.
Before his fall, Adam was an immature man of God, but the Last Adam is the mature.
Adam could be compared to a caterpillar while Jesus was the butterfly.
From the very foundation of the world, the Word contained the idea of the butterfly rather than the caterpillar. God looks at all the things that are not as though they were.
Jesus was the first who exactly represented the ultimate destiny of man. Jesus was "The brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person", (Heb. 1:3).
Thus we know what those enigmatic words of Jesus mean: "But many that are first shall be last, and many last first. "Abraham was great because of the promises that he owned. But was not about him, but for his seed, eg: to Christ, (Gal. 3:16,18). John the Baptist too testified, "After me comes a man who has been before me, for He was before me", (John 1:30). Yes, even the least in the kingdom of God is greater and earlier than John!
"And now, glorify Thou Me, Father, with Thyself glory which I had with thee before the world was (John 17:5).
Here Jesus points again to the eternal purpose of God to make him a house to create the man with whom he met all the conditions to do so. He was indeed the perfect spiritual man, whom the Father Himself had proposed. He was therefore entitled to the place in the throne of the Father. When Jesus spoke these words, He had overcome the world and its ruler and His mission here on earth was fulfilled, (John 16:33).
Had Jesus chosen to ascend at that particular time, God would have only received a single partner. God's plan, however, was to bring many sons unto glory. Jesus instead volunteered to become "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world", (Rev 13:8).
Although this Lamb was present in the plan of God (in the form of the Logos) from the beginnings, it only became reality when Jesus died on the cross of Calvary.
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church, "(Col 1:15 -18).
The Son as Word of God is the incarnation of the God's thoughts ... His Logos. He was the firstborn of all creation, because it was in Jesus that the destiny of man was first revealed.
With "all things are created by Him" is meant that it is the Son who brings about and completes the restored creation, (re-creation). It is all recreated by Him, (v20), because a perfect humanity can only function in a new heaven and a new earth filled with righteousness.
"Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men", (Phil 2: 6-7).
Jesus lived on earth in the perfect "image and likeness" of God", that is to say: in the form of God. So it is that Jesus did not appropriated something to which He had no right. "He was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God", (John 5:18). John wrote of the Incarnate Word, "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", (John 1:14). The unspiritual/natural man recognized Him not. When John saw Jesus in His glorified body, he fell dead at His feet, overwhelmed by the supernatural glory of his Master.
The Word and the sons of God were both conceived in the womb of Mary by the seed God, which is His Word. We Christians too are begotten by this Word, but in the spiritual world. This is what our Rebirth speaks to. "Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures", (James 1:18). We too have received the Holy Spirit and God dwells within our house. Our bodies are also God's temple because the Spirit of God dwells in us. "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?", (1Cor 3:16,17).
Behind the veil of our flesh forms the spiritual body, our soul and spirit and the Holy Spirit. "we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens", (2Cor 5:1&2). The size and stature of this spiritual body depends on our good works, because "the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints", (Rev 19:8). It is our robe of righteousness.
This spiritual home is the true and eternal temple God. God does not live forever in our physical shell, but in our spiritual body. When this spiritual body is fully developed and perfected, it will the time to be changed and our physical house will be swallowed up into our spiritual home.
We read, "Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in[d] blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God, ((the Logos!)). And the armies of heaven, (the faithful church of Jesus) arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses", (Rev. 19:11-16).
In that day too God will be as one. The Father, the Word (in us) and the Holy Spirit become one!
