What benefit does it produce to make Jesus God

[Peterlag]

If that is true than anybody can stop you physically from being alive and breathing and kill your soul at the same time, that is not the case at all.

Matthew 10:28
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

I will bet you my car that if we dig into the Greek we will find the word "soul" is the same Greek word for "spirit."

 

[Peterlag]

John 10:30. Let's look at that...

There is no reason to take this verse to mean that Christ was saying that he and the Father make up "one God." The phrase was a common one, and even today if someone used it, people would know exactly what they meant... he and his Father are very much alike. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about his ministry there, he said that he had planted the seed and Apollos had watered it. Then he said, "... he who plants and he who waters are one..." (1 Corinthians 3:8 NKJV). In the Greek texts, the wording of Paul is the same as that in John 10:30, yet no one claims that Paul and Apollos make up "one being." Christ uses the concept of "being one" in other places, and from them one can see that "one purpose" is what is meant. John 11:52 says Jesus was to die to make all God's children "one." In John 17:11, 21 and 22, Jesus prayed to God that his followers would be "one" as he and God were "one." I think it's obvious that Jesus was not praying that all his followers would become one being in "substance" just as he and his Father were one being or "substance." I believe the meaning is clear: Jesus was praying that all his followers be one in purpose just as he and God were one in purpose.

 

[Peterlag]

Here's some data on 10:33 for you...

Had the translators rendered the Greek text in verse 33 as they did in verse 34 and 35, then it would read, "...you, a man, claim to be a god." In the next two verses, John 10:34 and 35, the exact same word (theos, without the article) is translated as "god" and not "God." In Acts 12:22, Herod is called theos without the article, so the translators translate it "god." The same is true in Acts 28:6, when Paul had been bitten by a viper and the people expected him to die. When he did not die, "...they changed their minds and said he was a god." Since theos has no article, and since it is clear from the context that the reference is not about the true God, theos is translated "a god." It is a general principle that theos without the article should be "a god," or "divine." Since there is no evidence that Jesus was teaching that he was God anywhere in the context, and since the Pharisees would have never believed that this man was somehow Yahweh, it makes no sense that they would be saying that he said he was "God." Now since Jesus was clearly teaching that he was sent by God and was doing God's work. Thus, it makes perfect sense that the Pharisees would say he was claiming to be "a god" or "divine."

 

[BeyondET]

I will bet you my car that if we dig into the Greek we will find the word "soul" is the same Greek word for "spirit."

In a lower case form I can see that, you mentioned a man interesting when man was formed he was fully formed with nostrils and all. Then God breathed life through them and the man became a living being. could of been a spilt second after the vessel formation or minutes or hours who knows, but wasn't simultaneously

 

[BeyondET]

John 10:30. Let's look at that...

There is no reason to take this verse to mean that Christ was saying that he and the Father make up "one God." The phrase was a common one, and even today if someone used it, people would know exactly what they meant... he and his Father are very much alike. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about his ministry there, he said that he had planted the seed and Apollos had watered it. Then he said, "... he who plants and he who waters are one..." (1 Corinthians 3:8 NKJV). In the Greek texts, the wording of Paul is the same as that in John 10:30, yet no one claims that Paul and Apollos make up "one being." Christ uses the concept of "being one" in other places, and from them one can see that "one purpose" is what is meant. John 11:52 says Jesus was to die to make all God's children "one." In John 17:11, 21 and 22, Jesus prayed to God that his followers would be "one" as he and God were "one." I think it's obvious that Jesus was not praying that all his followers would become one being in "substance" just as he and his Father were one being or "substance." I believe the meaning is clear: Jesus was praying that all his followers be one in purpose just as he and God were one in purpose.

Do people have the same Holy Spirit within them at the same time?

Did Paul and Apollos have the same Spirit as people today?

 

[Matthias]

@RLT63 do you believe the New Testament provides us with a new understanding of who God is?

 

[Aunty Jane]

Maybe one of the JW members of the forum will have a reference for us.

@Aunty Jane do you know? Could you provide a reference for where support for “a god” in John 1:1c is found in Origen’s writings?

Not off hand, but all it takes is a brief study in the Greek rendering of John 1:1 to see the omission that allows Jesus to be "God" rather than "a god" or a divine one."

Strongs primary definition of "theos" (god) is "a god or goddess, a general name of deities or divinities"....so the word itself minus the definite article does not just refer to YHWH, but to all gods and goddesses....and the Greeks had a bunch of them.
Even satan is called "theos" in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 because he is the god of this world....the only one.

I have posted it many times and each time the silence is deafening.

From the Mounce Interlinear....
"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."

The omission in the English translation is not huge in its form......but huge in its meaning. That little word "ho". "Ho theos" refers to "THE God" which was a reference to the Almighty God YHWH.....but without the definite article, especially when this verse is differentiating between Almighty God and a "god-like" "divine" being who was "with" THE GOD "in the beginning"....we can get easily get led astray.

We can see that it means "the" in the other places where it appears even in this short verse......but where you DON"T see it is where the problem is....its the difference between Jesus being "THE God" and "a god".

If the divine name was still in use, John 1:1 would read...."In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with YHWH and the Word was divine", then backed up by verse 14 it says that "the Word became flesh and resided among us"....so it was the Word who became flesh, NOT "The God".

BTW, I think Origen was bit bit of a worry, so I personally do not put any great store by anything the early church "fathers" said.
Christianity Today had this to say.....
Origen

So the dogs of apostasy were snapping at the heels of the apostles whilst they were still alive, so the "weeds" of Jesus parable were already in existence ready to lead the church in a completely opposite direction to where Jesus led them. The apostles too backed this up.
Jesus said....
"Be on the watch for the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will recognize them. Never do people gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they?" (Matthew 7:15-16)
We were to look for the tell tale signs that predatory wolves exhibit, powerful and after blood......just the opposite of timid sheep who relied on their shepherds for protection. But what if the shepherds became lax and allowed the wolves into the pen? What has history shown as to the traits of the church after the first century? There was a steady decline until the church became filled with blood. If it was "by their fruits" that we would distinguish the difference between true Christians and the fakes that would be sown by the devil, the mass murders of Jews and dissenters during the Middle Ages give no recommendation to the morals of church members. Surely these and the other crimes committed during the Inquisition at the instigation of church leaders cannot be classed as moral. Neither can the fighting between Protestant and Catholic church members during the Reformation, which tore Europe to shreds, be classed as moral. Let those who think church membership produces genuine "Christians", consider these facts of history and cringe.

Paul too gave the warning...."No one is to deceive you in any way! For it will not come [the judgment day] unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction". (2 Thessalonians 2:3) That apostasy is now part of history right up to the present day, and in these threads we see proof of its success. :smlhmm:

 

[Aunty Jane]

The Trinity is One God: The One Triune God. Christians believe that God is Triune: He has three persons. Completely beyond the limits of comprehension of our finite logic.

Either that or the devil has succeeded in making God into someone he never was....Even the Catholic church who formulated the doctrine admits that it is NOT scriptural.
The New Catholic Encyclopedia states: “The formulation ‘one God in three Persons’ was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century. But it is precisely this formulation that has first claim to the title the Trinitarian dogma. Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective.” (1967), Vol. XIV, p. 299. Do you believe them?

Yes, Jesus is eternally begotten of the Father. Again, our finite minds cannot comprehend the Trinity.

Again with the "its-a-mystery" routine.....that is getting seriously "old".
God tells us who he is and who his son is....and Jesus tells us who he is, and who his Father is... but the holy spirit is strangely silent....and he is MIA in most mentions of Father and son together, such as in John 17:3 where Jesus identifies his Father as "the only true God" without including himself......so we apparently do not need the "know" the holy spirit in order to gain eternal life......what does that mean? Where is the co-equality? Or co-eternity?

To say that Jesus is the Son of God is to say exactly that He is God.

Why? If I have a son, is that son me? Or was he produced by me, making us both humans? The Bible says that "God is a spirit" and so was his son who was "with" his Father in heaven "in the beginning"....a realm inhabited by many other spirit beings. When did the spirit realm come into existence? How long have angels existed? Who created them?

Those who were alive at the time of Jesus understood this clearly. To hear Jesus say that God is my Father in Heaven and that the Father and I are one--he is declaring that He is God. There can be no misunderstanding of what he said at that time. It was very, very crystal clear to his direct audience. That is why they were going to stone him because if he was just a man then he would be speaking blasphemy.

No sorry, that is incorrect. Who did Jesus preach to? His fellow Jews...and they did not believe in a trinity in any manner shape or form...Their God was ONE, not three. (Deuteronomy 6:4)

If trinitarians have "God the Father"..."God the Son" and "God the Holy Spirit"...that is three gods....that is the trinity formulated by the RCC.....just because people change the concept to be three persons in one godhead, doesn't mean that it is supported by the Bible or any statement from Jesus that he is God....since he never once said he was.

So you only have two choices to make according to God's revealed word: Was Jesus a blasphemer and not actually God? Or was he saying the truth and that He is God. There is no third option.

Oh but there is! The third option is what is stated in John 1:1 in the original Greek......the "Word was with the God and the Word was divine".

Either he is a liar and committing a great disservice to humanity, some nutcase that needed to be put away and his death was good and deserved. Or, he is God. Those are the only choices you have. To make up another you are ignoring a large part of the New Testament so you are not actually making the choice from God's revealed word. You are making it from your own excerpts from the Bible.

You don't even realize what was "made up" of "excerpts from the Bible" hundreds of years after Jesus died, by an apostate church just as Jesus foretold......the NT does not contain one single direct statement from either God or his son that they are equal 'gods' in a 'godhead' with the holy spirit.....to assert that as truth, makes Jesus a liar.....because Jesus never said it.

 

[Carl Emerson]

You're killing me. Where's the verse? It's not in post 1826.

You asked for scriptural support and I posted it in Post #1826

 

[RLT63]

He was famous in his day, and popular for a couple of centuries following them. I don’t hear people talking about him and his commentary much anymore.

After my paternal grandfather died I inherited his small library. Among the books was Adam Clarke’s Commentary. At first that surprised me. Clarke’s position against “eternal generation” is a repudiation of orthodoxy. (If there is no eternal Son then the Trinity is down a person for some period of time.) My grandfather was a deacon in the Church and a trinitarian. But did he embrace orthodoxy? I don’t know but I suspect, in hindsight, that he didn’t.

But just because a book which undermines orthodoxy was found in his possession doesn’t, in and of itself, give me a definite answer.

It makes me wonder what my inheritors will think when they see what is in my personal library. I own hundreds of books - I sometimes think of them as “tools of the trade” - and I’d estimate that well over 90% of them are written by trinitarians. Will my descendants one day conclude from that that I was a trinitarian? I’ve put safeguards in place to ensure that they won’t.

I have a lot of books as well.

 

[Matthias]

I have a lot of books as well.

Are over 90% of them written by non-trinitarian writers?

 

[Matthias]

Not off hand, but all it takes is a brief study in the Greek rendering of John 1:1 to see the omission that allows Jesus to be "God" rather than "a god" or a divine one."

Strongs primary definition of "theos" (god) is "a god or goddess, a general name of deities or divinities"....so the word itself minus the definite article does not just refer to YHWH, but to all gods and goddesses....and the Greeks had a bunch of them.
Even satan is called "theos" in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 because he is the god of this world....the only one.

I have posted it many times and each time the silence is deafening.

From the Mounce Interlinear....
"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."

The omission in the English translation is not huge in its form......but huge in its meaning. That little word "ho". "Ho theos" refers to "THE God" which was a reference to the Almighty God YHWH.....but without the definite article, especially when this verse is differentiating between Almighty God and a "god-like" "divine" being who was "with" THE GOD "in the beginning"....we can get easily get led astray.

We can see that it means "the" in the other places where it appears even in this short verse......but where you DON"T see it is where the problem is....its the difference between Jesus being "THE God" and "a god".

If the divine name was still in use, John 1:1 would read...."In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with YHWH and the Word was divine", then backed up by verse 14 it says that "the Word became flesh and resided among us"....so it was the Word who became flesh, NOT "The God".

BTW, I think Origen was bit bit of a worry, so I personally do not put any great store by anything the early church "fathers" said.
Christianity Today had this to say.....
Origen

So the dogs of apostasy were snapping at the heels of the apostles whilst they were still alive, so the "weeds" of Jesus parable were already in existence ready to lead the church in a completely opposite direction to where Jesus led them. The apostles too backed this up.
Jesus said....
"Be on the watch for the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will recognize them. Never do people gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they?" (Matthew 7:15-16)
We were to look for the tell tale signs that predatory wolves exhibit, powerful and after blood......just the opposite of timid sheep who relied on their shepherds for protection. But what if the shepherds became lax and allowed the wolves into the pen? What has history shown as to the traits of the church after the first century? There was a steady decline until the church became filled with blood. If it was "by their fruits" that we would distinguish the difference between true Christians and the fakes that would be sown by the devil, the mass murders of Jews and dissenters during the Middle Ages give no recommendation to the morals of church members. Surely these and the other crimes committed during the Inquisition at the instigation of church leaders cannot be classed as moral. Neither can the fighting between Protestant and Catholic church members during the Reformation, which tore Europe to shreds, be classed as moral. Let those who think church membership produces genuine "Christians", consider these facts of history and cringe.

Paul too gave the warning...."No one is to deceive you in any way! For it will not come [the judgment day] unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction". (2 Thessalonians 2:3) That apostasy is now part of history right up to the present day, and in these threads we see proof of its success. :smlhmm:

Thanks.

Out of all the Ante-Nicene Fathers I was exposed to in college, Origen was the one I least enjoyed reading. I did the bare amount of assigned reading in school and never went back for much more of Origen than a few excerpts from other writings after graduating.

“Eternal generation of the Son” is his critical contribution to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.

 

[RLT63]

Are over 90% of them written by non-trinitarian writers?

I don't have many that address that subject

 

[Phoneman777]

I have no idea what testing the spirit means. Is that to know if it's from God or the devil? What else is there to know?

What do you think it means?

 

[Matthias]

I don't have many that address that subject

You primarily read the home team. I primarily read the visiting team.

We primarily read trinitarian writers.

 

[Phoneman777]

Not off hand, but all it takes is a brief study in the Greek rendering of John 1:1 to see the omission that allows Jesus to be "God" rather than "a god" or a divine one."

Strongs primary definition of "theos" (god) is "a god or goddess, a general name of deities or divinities"....so the word itself minus the definite article does not just refer to YHWH, but to all gods and goddesses....and the Greeks had a bunch of them.
Even satan is called "theos" in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 because he is the god of this world....the only one.

I have posted it many times and each time the silence is deafening.

Why should there be anyone to question whether the "Word" here is fully divine or not, when we know it's referring to Jesus, Who Himself says He's the "I AM", the Creator God of the OT?

 

[Matthias]

@RLT63 do you believe that the Father and the Son are in any sense two Gods?

 

[dhh712]

There is a relationship between the Father and the Son. We saw Jesus pray to the Father not my will but yours be done. The Father always sends the Son. The Son doesn't send the Father. There is relational subordination.

Relational subordination yes--the Son must obey the Father. As long as it is not a substance subordination, like in some essential, qualitative way the Son is less God than the Father. The Father, Son and Spirit are all coequal as God in the Godhead.

I agree with Carl's statement that we are given the title "Son of God" to explain a relationship which we cannot comprehend with our finite minds. God certainly did not give birth to Jesus as then he would have had a beginning. Eternally begotten of the Father is just not something we are able to understand and that most likely doesn't fit the actual relationship amongst the Trinity; it's just the best we can do as an attempt to encompass in part of what kind of relationships compose the Trinity.

 

[dhh712]

Jesus was not yet born when God said in Psalm that He blots out transgressions. Number 2 nobody ever said Jesus (when he would be here) could not forgive sins. And number 3 Mark 2:7 says the unbelievers said Jesus could not do it. I don't see any proof anywhere in what you write that says only God could forgive sins.

Well, if you can't see it I can't help you there. Since transgressions are against God, only God can forgive them. Maybe one day you'll understand. But, I'm not able to help you any further along that route. Best wishes.

 

[Matthias]

God certainly didn’t give birth to Jesus. He caused Mary to give birth to Jesus. God beget Jesus; Mary conceived and gave birth to Jesus. This is the beginning of Jesus.

Jesus has a beginning. His beginning is in the womb of his mother, as we are told in the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke.

P.S.

Readers should note carefully that I’m not saying here that the second person of the Trinity has a beginning. The second person of the Trinity has no beginning. The second person of the Trinity is eternal.