Jesus is God

[Cruciform]

No True Scotsman it is then.

A virtually meaningless and largely-discredited retort that almost no one bothers to use any more, since it would apply to any and all mutually exclusive positions---including yours. Try again.

Without any doubt.

No need to bother, then, since no inductive argument---including yours---works like a mathematics equation (that is, deductively), nor yields the sort of absolute certainty you're demanding. In short, your own position cannot meet your naively unrealistic self-styled criterion, and so---by your own definition---can never be considered anything more than "ambiguous." Nice try, though.



Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

 

[Cruciform]

The "central doctrine of the Christian faith", which was developed long after Christ and his apostles, the founders of the Christian church, were preaching the Gospel.

You're simply wrong. The plural-person view of God was believed and taught by Christ's one historic Church for decades before a single document of the New Testament was ever penned---by which time it was simply assumed in the apostles' canonical writings---and for centuries before there was a New Testament canon.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. :sarcasm:

You might want to save your sarcasm until you actually know what you're talking about.

If it's so central, why didn't Jesus and his apostles just come out and say, "God is a trinity"?

See above.



Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

 

[keypurr]

Your one-liners ignore context...

Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham came to be, I AM! (John 8.58)

Convenient that you left out the fact that Jesus is not only a man, but God, as well.

He is the God-man.

Nope, it just proves you don't think.

The spirit Christ did exist before the world, but Jesus did not.
However, neither is God.

 

[Krsto]

You're simply wrong. The plural-person view of God was believed and taught by Christ's one historic Church for decades before a single document of the New Testament was ever penned---by which time it was simply assumed in the apostles' canonical writings---and for centuries before there was a New Testament canon.


You might want to save your sarcasm until you actually know what you're talking about.


See above.



Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

Pure unsupported conjecture. You have no knowledge of what was taught before the scriptures were penned, and the plural person view of God is not what was penned, but your post-apostolic development of what they said. It's a developed doctrine, and your church goes to great lengths to justify the concept of developing doctrine so they can maintain their 4th century formulation.

 

[Pierac]

Your one-liners ignore context...

Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham came to be, I AM! (John 8.58)

Convenient that you left out the fact that Jesus is not only a man, but God, as well.

He is the God-man.

Thank you for posting what your traditions of men teach you in your church... Perhaps we should actually see what scripture teaches...

Let's start in Exodus.

KJV Exo 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

Now we shall read the same verse from the Greek Septuagint

Septuagint Exo 3:14 και ειπεν ο θεος προς μωυσην [εγω ειμι ο ων] και ειπεν ουτως ερεις τοις υιοις ισραηλ [ο ων] απεσταλκεν με προς υμας

Note the two separate Greek words used for 'am'

Concordant Literal Version Exo 3:14 Then Elohim spoke to Moses: I shall come to be just as I am coming to be. And He said: Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, I-Shall-Come-to-Be has sent me to you.

Now when translated literally you get a whole different look. What happened to the other I am's?

The Hebrew Bible uses the word (hâyâh H1961) in the place of "Am" which is a verb meaning to exist, to be.
Check the Strongs' number.

Clearly Jesus did not say (εγω ειμι ο ων) nor did he state (ο ων), in John 8:58. Jesus spoke the words (εγω ειμι) just like other people in the bible who are not God. So just what was Jesus saying?

Now pay attention...!!! This expression from Jesus' lips "I am" (Greek ego eimi) occurs throughout the Gospel of John and in no other text in John can it mean I AM, the God of the Old Testament.

Let's go back to John 4:25-26 for instance. The woman at the well said to Jesus, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when that one comes, he will declare all things to us." And Jesus said to her, "I who speak with you am he." You will notice that in most Bibles that word he is in italics. This means that the translators have correctly supplied a word in English that is not in the Greek but that nevertheless makes the intended sense quite clear. Here Jesus says to the woman - in the context of her question about the Messiah - that he is the Messiah, the Christ. "I who speak to you am he." In the Greek it reads ego eimi. Jesus simply says I am he, the Messiah. Definitely not “I am is the one speaking to you!”

In John 9 Jesus heals the blind man. Is this really the beggar who used to sit groping in the dark? Some people said, "Yes, it's him all right." Other said, "No, he just looks like him." But the beggar says, " ego eimi!" And the translators have no problem writing, "I am the one." So why aren't the translators consistent? Why not capitalize what this man says as I AM? Because it is clear that he is not claiming to be the God of the Old Testament. Saying "I am" (ego eimi) does not make somebody God in the Bible!
What Jesus is saying is simply “Before Abraham was born, I am he,” that is, "I am the Messiah."


Notice the context in John 8:56 where Jesus says, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day." By faith Abraham looked forward and saw the coming Messiah before he came in history. He believed the promise that God would send the Promised One. On the other hand these Jews did not believe that Jesus was their Messiah. They were claiming to be Abraham's descendents. Jesus said that this was impossible for they did not recognize him as their Messiah. But Jesus asserts that even before Abraham was born, he is the One who was always in God's plan. This Abraham believe and saw. The Messiah preexisted in God's plan and therefore in Abraham's believing mind, because he trusted the promise of God. Jesus positively did not say, before Abraham was, "I was." Also, Jesus did not say, “Before Abraham was, I AM WHAT I AM."

The conclusion is inevitable. Jesus’ claim "Before Abraham was born, I am he" is the straightforward claim that he is the long promised one, the Messiah, the One in question. Jesus is the Savior in God's promise even before Abraham was born.


The Jewish leaders were very well aware of what Jesus was saying about himself! Jesus Was not claiming to be God but the Son of God as Shown in John 19:6. They give the very reason they wanted Him dead!

John 19:6 When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him. 7 The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.

Jesus, NEVER claimed to be God!

oly::sherlock:
Paul

 

[Krsto]

The doctrine of the Trinity is in scripture, It might not have been named until later but it is in several passages of Scripture.

No, your interpretation of the godhead is trinitarian, but those same scriptures also teach unitarianism, and if one is so inclined he will also see modalism and arianism in those same scriptures. To say that they teach trinitarianism is simply reading into the scriptures something that is not there. The proof of this is the fact that no trinitarian can teach his doctrine WITHOUT using terminology that hadn't been invented until way after Jesus and the apostles taught.

I've made this challenge many times on TOL, and so far no one has produced: find me one statement from the writers immediately following the apostles that indicates they were trinitarian and the same statement couldn't have been made by a unitarian, arian, or modalist.

The reason this is important is because if the early church were trinitarian and we can't prove the apostles were trinitarian or something else, then we should be able to see trinitarianism in the next generation if indeed the church was trinitarian.

I submit to you we don't see any sign of uniquely trinitarian statements until the 3rd century.

 

[Grosnick Marowbe]

OK.

Good response! You're a man who knows his limitations!

 

[1Mind1Spirit]

LOL, decided not to post.

Sorry Grosnick.

I didn't realize what he said was buried so far back.

I erased it before I saw you had responded.

 

[Grosnick Marowbe]

Which applied to all the body, all came from the light that Jesus portrayed in the allegorical tale, Ephesians backs that up as well so the prior state of everyone was with the so called Father of the Godhead. Plus seeing the image referred to as being Gods was both male and female in one body!! which is why Paul stated that neither label applied because the new creation was back in the state of the original image.

What's wrong with you? Any idea? You're mind seems to
be, pickled in absurdity! Glad I'm not you that's all I gotta
say!

 

[Under Pressure]

A virtually meaningless and largely-discredited retort that almost no one bothers to use any more, since it would apply to any and all mutually exclusive positions---including yours. Try again.

No true Christian then.

No need to bother, then, since no inductive argument---including yours---works like a mathematics equation (that is, deductively), nor yields the sort of absolute certainty you're demanding. In short, your own position cannot meet your naively unrealistic self-styled criterion, and so---by your own definition---can never be considered anything more than "ambiguous." Nice try, though.

So, you can't provide unambiguous EVIDENCE that Jesus is "god" (an argument isn't evidence btw). Not that I thought you could do either. That's too bad and you showed so much promise :sigh:.

 

[Totton Linnet]

Men beget men
Rabbits beget rabbits
God begot God

 

[Under Pressure]

Men beget men
Rabbits beget rabbits
God begot God

That kind of flies in the face of ONE "god" then doesn't it :chuckle:.

 

[Cruciform]

Pure unsupported conjecture. You have no knowledge of what was taught before the scriptures were penned...

Nonsense, since the early Church Fathers testified in their voluminous writings concerning the doctrines that they received from the apostles themselves, and from the apostles' immediate successors, the bishops. And one of the beliefs received by the early Christian Church from the apostles and bishops was that of the plural-person doctrine of God. My previous statement therefore stands exactly as posted.

...and the plural person view of God is not what was penned...

As I've already said, the plural-person view of God had been believed and taught long before the NT documents were written, such that, when they did finally write some things down, the apostles merely assumed the view in their written testimony. Their readers (hearers) were already quite familiar with the concept of plurality in God, and needed no explicit written teaching on the subject. This can be seen, for example, here.

It's a developed doctrine...

Of course it is, as all Christian doctrines are.



Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

 

[journey]

Jesus Christ said:

Matthew 28:19 KJV Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

 

[Cruciform]

No true Christian then.

No true atheist, no true New Ager, no true Unitarian, no true Democrat, no true conservative, no true Beatles fan---whatever. Useless.

So, you can't provide unambiguous EVIDENCE that Jesus is "god"

As already observed, there simply IS no evidence that is inherently "unambiguous" in the sense you're employing here. Inductive lines of reasoning simply do not possess such certainty as you demand (and nor do the vast majority of things you claim to "know"). Sorry for your confusion.

That's too bad and you showed so much promise :sigh:.

Bare rhetoric. Try again.



Gaudium de veritate,

Cruciform
+T+

 

[Cruciform]

Jesus Christ said:

Matthew 28:19 KJV Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Yes, and Jesus said this specifically to the apostles, the ordained leaders of his one historic Church.

 

[RCLady]

Do you believe it?

Yes. Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God who assumed a human nature and became man from the flesh of the Virgin Mary. He is one Divine Person with two natures. He is God and man.

 

[journey]

Genesis 1:26 KJV And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Yes, Jesus Christ is God - also known as The Word, The Son of God, and other holy names. He is One with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is also the Creator:

John 1:1-3 KJV In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

 

[Cruciform]

Yes. Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God who assumed a human nature and became man from the flesh of the Virgin Mary. He is one Divine Person with two natures. He is God and man.

An excellent succinct description of what Christians believe. :thumb:

 

[Lon]

El gibbor or the mighty god is what St.Thomas declared . Not YhVh.

For me the best point is when He did speak the name of God when He said, "before Moses was I AM"

Not that it matters to you, my friend steko.i know you are a trinitarian.

However when it was declared who He is as a rabbi or teacher He "Jesus" did not correct there either, as the argument goes when St.Thomas declared my Lord and Mighty God , He was not corrected either.


Posted from the TOL App!

:nono: Nice try but this is Greek and it says Kurios (Lord) and Theos(God). El Gabor is Hebrew and OT. You folks need to listen to people who actually know this stuff.