I trust that there was going to be a “cleansing, purifying and refining” of God’s worshippers in this “time of the end”, and that if there wasn’t a lot of impurities discernible at this time, then no “cleansing, purifying and refining” would be necessary.
Viewing what “Christianity” has become in today’s world, I can surely see the need to clean up their act. But the wicked were not going to change...they would just continue on in their old ways, oblivious of the need to clean up their worship, now contaminated with all manner of ill-conceived ideas and practices, accepted for so long that they mistake what they are practicing and believing for genuine Christianity.....I do not see even a remote connection.
So you're saying that the reformation has caused the necessity of a clean up right NOW since Christianity has become contaminated will ill-conceived ideas?
I'd have to agree.
But in that mix, I'd have to add the JWs...which religion is considered to be a cult by any theologian except your own.
Does this mean that JWs need to be cleaned up too?
Or are they the only group that has the truth and perhaps IS the pillar of truth?
Not until the fourth century C.E. did the teaching that the holy spirit was a person and part of the “Godhead” become official church dogma. Early church “fathers” did not so teach; Justin Martyr of the second century C.E. taught that the holy spirit was an ‘influence or mode of operation of the Deity’; Hippolytus likewise ascribed no personality to the holy spirit. The Scriptures themselves unite to show that God’s holy spirit is not a person but is God’s active force by which he accomplishes his purpose and executes his will.
I wish you'd read my post no. 420 just above.
In a previous post you stated I was incorrect in stating that the JWs used to believe that Jesus was the Archangel Michael and that they still do.
Is this correct? Then that post is pertinent to this conversation.
Is Jesus an angel...or is He all those things I listed to God Father, Yahweh.
I think the answer is important.
If Jesus is just a man, His death means nothing and we are lost in our sins.
Ephesians 2:2-6 Jesus is sitting with God in heavenly places...a place of authority, to judge the living and the dead.
Regarding the Holy Spirit...it is God's active force, I'm good with that.
But that active force has His own function toward us humans...that force is shown as a Person, but it can be said that it is the visible love between the Father and the Son.
Are you familiar with the filioque problem?
Possible linguistic resolution[edit]
In 1995, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPU) pointed out that the Filioque conundrum may be a problem of language, rather than a problem of theology.[24] The word ἐκπορεύεσθαι in Greek indicates a primary cause or an ultimate cause; while the Latin word procedere indicates a procession but not from an ultimate cause. The Latin version may be more accurately retranslated into Greek as προϊέναι, rather than ἐκπορεύεσθαι. Metropolitan John Zizioulas declared that PCPCU position shows positive signs of reconciliation for the Filioque issue between the Eastern and Western churches.[25]
I bring this up only because the Holy Spirit is accepted as a person by both the Catholic and Orthodox church.
It is only from where the Holy Spirit PROCEEDS that is in question.
In John’s account of Jesus’ words regarding the holy spirit, his remarks must be taken in context. Jesus personalized the holy spirit when speaking of that spirit as a “helper” (which in Greek is the masculine substantive pa·raʹkle·tos). Properly, therefore, John presents Jesus’ words as referring to that “helper” aspect of the spirit with masculine personal pronouns. On the other hand, in the same context, when the Greek "pneuʹmais" used, John employs a neuter pronoun to refer to the holy spirit, pneuʹma itself being neuter. Hence, we have in John’s use of the masculine personal pronoun in association with pa·raʹkle·tos an example of conformity to grammatical rules, not an expression of doctrine. "Autos" (Greek) translated as "HE", can mean "it", "she", "they", etc.....so it does not always say what you assume it does in English. Bias determines a lot in translation. The NWT translates "autos" as "that one" which is just as valid.
You're referring to John 16:7, which I had mentioned.
What about
John 14:17?
that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
This is also listed as a Personal, Possessive, Aorist-Imperative, 3rd person subjunctive.
What does that mean?
I have an idea....but I don't know Greek.
So I depend on those that do, and if we cannot trust them, then neither you nor I are in a good position and cannot trust the Word of God.
Scholars of Greek have translated John 16:7 and John 14:17 with the word HIM (not she and not it).
See John 14:17
Greek Concordance: αὐτό (auto) -- 105 Occurrences
The beginning of what? Until Catholicism introduced the trinity, there was no such thing as a "godhead", and no such thing as a "holy ghost".
Since God's son was by his side as a "master worker" (Proverbs 8:30-31) and Colossians 1:15-17 tells us that creation came from the Father "THROUGH" the son, we can assume that by means of God's spirit all things came into existence by the 'team' working in conjunction.
Yes they did......but there is no mention of a trinity in anything they said. It is implied by the church, but never stated by the apostles or those whom they taught until later....like I said the foretold apostasy did not happen overnight, but gradually over the centuries as men gained more control and a clergy class emerged who mirrored the Pharisees, not the apostles.
The early church grappled with the idea of who Jesus was.
The Apostles themselves did not know....
It wasn't until the resurrection that they understood who Jesus was and understood all that He had said about what He had
to suffer.
Much study of letters circulating went into the accepted belief that Jesus was not "just" a man.
I can list why, but it's too late now.
There are reasons why the early believers came to understand that Jesus is God.
Please remind me tomorrow. (it's midnight now).
The early church had some teaching ariansim....
The creed was to combat this heresy and clarify the church's position re the hypostatic union.
In the 5th century, a dispute arose between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius in which Nestorius claimed that the term theotokos could not be used to describe Mary, the mother of Christ. Nestorius argued for two distinct persons of Christ, maintaining that God could not be born because the divine nature is unoriginate.[dubious – discuss]
Therefore, Nestorius believed that the man Jesus of Nazareth was born in union with, but separate from and not strictly identifiable with, the Logos of God.[dubious – discuss] The Council of Ephesus in 431, under the leadership of Cyril himself as well as the Ephesian bishop Memnon, labeled Nestorius a neo-adoptionist, implying that the man Jesus is divine and the Son of God only by grace and not by nature, and deposed him as a heretic.
In his letter to Nestorius, Cyril used the term "hypostatic" (Greek, καθ᾽ ὑπόστασιν kath' hypóstasin) to refer to Christ's divine and human natures being one, saying, “We must follow these words and teachings, keeping in mind what ‘having been made flesh’ means …. We say … that the Word, by having united to himself hypostatically flesh animated by a rational soul, inexplicably and incomprehensibly became man.”[10]
source: Hypostatic union - Wikipedia