The humanity of Jesus and the Trinity

Pompey Magnus

I am a little puzzled by the Christian insistance that Jesus is both God and man, because if this is true and also the concept of the Trinity is true then does this mean that God is approximately 16.7% (one-sixth) human? To me this is a proposterous claim but this seems to be the implication. I don't even know what it would mean to suggest that an infinite entity could be in any part human but this seems to be the inescapable conclusion.

Certain early Christians, the Adoptionists, believed that the spirit of God temporarily inhabited (adopted) the body of a mortal man named Jesus, entering him at his baptism in the Jordon, indeed this may even have been the understanding of Mark who begins his Gospel at this point. Mark mentions nothing of a miraculous birth and makes no claim that Jesus was in any way special prior to his baptism when the Spirit of God entered into him. His original Gospel also made no mention of Jesus ascending bodily into Heaven, also fitting with the Adoptionist understanding of Jesus.

This Adoptionist claim provides what seems to me to be a relatively satisfactory explanation for the problem of how God could be also human, however this was deemed heretical. Do Christians actually accept that God is one-sixth human or is there a way around what seems to me to be a proposterous and meaningless claim.

PDN

Charco wrote: »

I am a little puzzled by the Christian insistance that Jesus is both God and man, because if this is true and also the concept of the Trinity is true then does this mean that God is approximately 16.7% (one-sixth) human?

No, it does not mean that. You are attempting to use mathematical criteria (designed for studying God's creation) and apply them to the Creator.

The Trinity does not mean that God the Son is 33% of God. He is 100% of God, as is the Father and the Holy Spirit. Nor was half of Jesus man. Jesus was 100% God and 100% man.

Certain early Christians, the Adoptionists, believed that the spirit of God temporarily inhabited (adopted) the body of a mortal man named Jesus, entering him at his baptism in the Jordon, indeed this may even have been the understanding of Mark who begins his Gospel at this point. Mark mentions nothing of a miraculous birth and makes no claim that Jesus was in any way special prior to his baptism when the Spirit of God entered into him. His original Gospel also made no mention of Jesus ascending bodily into Heaven, also fitting with the Adoptionist understanding of Jesus.

That's one of the worst arguments from silence I've ever heard. Every Gospel chooses a starting and ending point in line with their purpose. Mark presents Jesus as the Servant who perfectly fulfilled the Father's will. Therefore it concentrates on His ministry to redeem mankind, which begins with His baptism. To read anything else into that is speculation of the highest order.

This Adoptionist claim provides what seems to me to be a relatively satisfactory explanation for the problem of how God could be also human, however this was deemed heretical. Do Christians actually accept that God is one-sixth human or is there a way around what seems to me to be a proposterous and meaningless claim

No, Christians do not accept that God is one-sixth human.

Pompey Magnus

PDN wrote: »

The Trinity does not mean that God the Son is 33% of God. He is 100% of God, as is the Father and the Holy Spirit. Nor was half of Jesus man. Jesus was 100% God and 100% man.

This doesn't really answer the question though. Is God partially human or not? Also was Jesus fully God and fully man 10 billion years ago or did this only occur 2,000 years ago?

That's one of the worst arguments from silence I've ever heard. Every Gospel chooses a starting and ending point in line with their purpose. Mark presents Jesus as the Servant who perfectly fulfilled the Father's will. Therefore it concentrates on His ministry to redeem mankind, which begins with His baptism. To read anything else into that is speculation of the highest order.

Clearly I'm not the one reading anything more into Mark's Gospel, you are. I am taking it as an isolated work written independent of (and prior to) Matthew, Luke and John, and as far as Mark's Gospel goes there was no claim of a miraculous birth or ascention into Heaven. From his account on its own this is all we can know and it is also all that the early Christain churches who had access to only Mark's Gospel could know through reading it.

You however make the assumption that Mark consciously decided to leave these details out as they weren't relevant to his theological arguments, there is no way you can possibly know this when you read his Gospel. It is an assumption based on your faith and not on the evidence provided in his book.

You seem to assume that Mark believed all this even though he himself doesn't say so. I, on the other hand, am not making any assumptions. I just pointed out that as far as we can tell from his own Gospel this could well have been what he believed.

If an Adoptionist were to have read the Gospel of Mark they would not have had any trouble in accepting it as being consistent with their beliefs that Jesus was inhabited by the Spirit of God at his baptism. Why wouldn't they have any trouble believing Mark? Because what they believed happened is exactly what Mark says happened.

PDN

Charco wrote: »

This doesn't really answer the question though. Is God partially human or not?

I would not say that God is 'partially' human. I think such language is inadequate when dealing with the Trinity. It's like using 2-dimensional terms to describe a 3-dimensional object.

Also was Jesus fully God and fully man 10 billion years ago or did this only occur 2,000 years ago?

No, God the Son did not become human until the incarnation - when He was miraculously conceived in the womb of Mary. Before this point it is not IMHO even accurate to refer to Him as 'Jesus'.

Clearly I'm not the one reading anything more into Mark's Gospel, you are. I am taking it as an isolated work written independent of (and prior to) Matthew, Luke and John, and as far as Mark's Gospel goes there was no claim of a miraculous birth or ascention into Heaven. From his account on its own this is all we can know and it is also all that the early Christain churches who had access to only Mark's Gospel could know through reading it.

Yet in previous posts you have claimed to believe in a hypothetical document called Q. Have you now abandoned this belief when it suits you to claim that Mark was written in splendid isolation?

In fact biblical scholars agree that none of the Gospels were written in such isolation. There was a body of oral tradition and apostolic teaching that was shared by early Christians - and the Gospels reflect that. The idea that churches ever had nothing but Mark's Gospel is ahistorical twaddle.

BrianCalgary

Charco wrote: »

This doesn't really answer the question though. Is God partially human or not? Also was Jesus fully God and fully man 10 billion years ago or did this only occur 2,000 years ago? .

God became man 2,000 years ago. Jesus was fully God and fully man.

Charco wrote: »

Clearly I'm not the one reading anything more into Mark's Gospel, you are. I am taking it as an isolated work written independent of (and prior to) Matthew, Luke and John, and as far as Mark's Gospel goes there was no claim of a miraculous birth or ascention into Heaven. From his account on its own this is all we can know and it is also all that the early Christain churches who had access to only Mark's Gospel could know through reading it.

You however make the assumption that Mark consciously decided to leave these details out as they weren't relevant to his theological arguments, there is no way you can possibly know this when you read his Gospel. It is an assumption based on your faith and not on the evidence provided in his book.

You seem to assume that Mark believed all this even though he himself doesn't say so. I, on the other hand, am not making any assumptions. I just pointed out that as far as we can tell from his own Gospel this could well have been what he believed.

If an Adoptionist were to have read the Gospel of Mark they would not have had any trouble in accepting it as being consistent with their beliefs that Jesus was inhabited by the Spirit of God at his baptism. Why wouldn't they have any trouble believing Mark? Because what they believed happened is exactly what Mark says happened.

You are reading into Marks gospel. His account of events begins when it does. To read anything more into it is not correct. Nor is what the adoptionists do correct.

With the gospels you have 4 different account of the life of Jesus, each will be different as it is from a different point of view. WHen you piece them together you get th ewhole stroy of teh life of Jesus, from His birth to His death and resurection and assumption.

Pompey Magnus

PDN wrote: »

Yet in previous posts you have claimed to believe in a hypothetical document called Q. Have you now abandoned this belief when it suits you to claim that Mark was written in splendid isolation?

Q wasn't Mark's source though, as far as we know Mark had no access to Q. Rather Q and Mark together were the sources of Luke and Matthew. I don't see how my acceptance of the likely existence of Q in any way contradicts my claims about an unrelated Gospel.

Also I didn't say Mark wrote in splendid isolation, just that his Gospel was written independent of Matthew, Luke and John. Considering how Mark was most likely our oldest existing Gospel this is not a particularly controversial claim as obviously he couldn't have been influenced by what were as yet unwritten works. I'm certain that Mark did have his own sources, perhaps these were oral sources which Mark decided to put into writing for his own community.

In fact biblical scholars agree that none of the Gospels were written in such isolation. There was a body of oral tradition and apostolic teaching that was shared by early Christians - and the Gospels reflect that. The idea that churches ever had nothing but Mark's Gospel is ahistorical twaddle.

I would say it is clear that there was an original oral tradition about Jesus which spread across the Mediterranean world and this tradition, like every oral tradition, was altered and refined as it spread geographically and as time went on.

Just by looking at the different Gospels and their different understandings of who Jesus was we can see this. They portray sometimes a subtly different character and occasionaly a drastically different character. John's Jesus is quite a different person to Mark's Jesus written 30 years earlier.

Say Mark was written in Rome. The Christians in Mark's community prior to the writing of this Gospel would have had the oral traditions of Jesus which had travelled a particular path to get to Rome. Mark then wrote these traditions down and we can see that what his community had was an under-developed story compared to the later Gospels.

Say then that Matthew was written in Antioch. Matthew's community had their own oral traditions which travelled a very different path to the traitions which arrived in Rome. They also seem to have had a very basic written account of certain sayings and deeds of Jesus which we now call Q. One day somebody from the community brought back another Gospel, Mark. The community approved of this new Gospel, however it did need improving. Matthew then re-wrote Mark, creating the Gospel of Matthew(which was basically the Gospel of Mark II), doing so by taking Mark and changing it and adding to it in order to better fit the traditions of his community. Similarly for Luke. This resulted basically in three Gospels of Mark by the end of the 1st century: the original, the one edited by Matthew, and the one edited by Luke.

This process kept happening through the Christian communities, for example Marcion did to Luke what Luke did to Mark, he changed it and "improved" Luke to better fit with his understanding of Jesus.

Even from the earlier writings of Paul we can see that already there were conflicting traditions about Jesus being spread geographically and Paul was doing his best to promote his particular belief against the competition.

The idea that even the earliest decades of Christianity saw a religion united in its understanding of Jesus and that they had access to a consistent message based on apostolic tradition is an idealised vision which is not consistent with the evidence provide in the writings we find from that period.

philologos

Jesus took human form (Phillippians 2) during his earthly ministry, nowhere does it say he was always human.

kelly1

- God is spirit
- There are three equal persons in the Holy Trinity
- Each is not the other two e.g. Son != Father, Father != Holy Spirit.
- The Son before the incarnation only had a divine nature.
- In the incarnation the Son "assumed" human nature without diminishing His divinity.
- Before the incarnation, the Son had 1 nature, afterwards 2.
- The Son was and is 1 Person.

Pompey Magnus

BrianCalgary wrote: »

You are reading into Marks gospel. His account of events begins when it does. To read anything more into it is not correct. Nor is what the adoptionists do correct.

Again I have to disagree. I did not say that Mark was definitely putting forward an adoptionist explanation in his Gospel, just that it is impossible to say that he wasn't by reading it. Yes each Gospel has to begin at some point and Mark decided to begin at Jesus' baptism, the problem is that he decided to begin at one of the most important moments of the adoptionist story about Jesus, which would understandably have had no major interest in the story of Jesus prior to the spirit of God inhabiting him.

Indeed it is quite possible that Mark did believe in a virgin birth of Jesus in which God himself became fully flesh, but that Mark (for some unknown reason) wasn't very concerned about this incredible historic event and decided to not waste ink on such an uninteresting event as the first ever incarnation of God almighty and decided to skip over it. My point however is that we don't know this, and we can't know this because Mark himself doesn't say what he believed happened at Jesus' birth.

With the gospels you have 4 different account of the life of Jesus, each will be different as it is from a different point of view. WHen you piece them together you get th ewhole stroy of teh life of Jesus, from His birth to His death and resurection and assumption.

Yes, but it is only by piecing these four seperate texts together that you can get the current understanding of Jesus. How you understand Jesus is not how any one of the Gospel writers understood Jesus.

You make the faith based assumption that these four Gospels and only these four, no less and no more, were divinely inspired and were always intended to be read together. The problem is that none of the Gospels actually claim this themselves. They also never claim to be only telling part of the story.

BrianCalgary

I have highlighted the areas of your post where you are reading into the thoughts and mind of the writer:

Charco wrote: »

Indeed it is quite possible that Mark did believe in a virgin birth of Jesus in which God himself became fully flesh, but that Mark (for some unknown reason) wasn't very concerned about this incredible historic event and decided to not waste ink on such an uninteresting event as the first ever incarnation of God almighty and decided to skip over it. My point however is that we don't know this, and we can't know this because Mark himself doesn't say what he believed happened at Jesus' birth..

and in all fairness yo usay that we can't know this. If we can't know it then why discuss it especially when the conclusaion contradicts the accounts of Jesus' life that we know from the other gospels?

Charco wrote: »

Yes, but it is only by piecing these four seperate texts together that you can get the current understanding of Jesus. How you understand Jesus is not how any one of the Gospel writers understood Jesus..

I certainly think that it is. The Gospel writers were all connected with Jesus in a certain manner. When Paul came around he worked to explain the theology and truth behind Jesus, the gospel writers knew Paul and did not contradict his portrayal of Jesus as God incarnate and through whom salvation is attained.

Charco wrote: »

You make the faith based assumption that these four Gospels and only these four, no less and no more, were divinely inspired and were always intended to be read together. The problem is that none of the Gospels actually claim this themselves. They also never claim to be only telling part of the story.

Show me others that are genuine? There are none. I will take the word of a person from teh time of Acts and the first century church as to what are genuine scripture and what are not over the word of a modern day scholar.

The reason we know the four gospels to be tru is that they were accepted as such at the time. They were written within 50 years of the events portrayed. All the other 'gospels' you mention were written over a hundred years after by people who could not have known Jesus or any of His disciples directly.

Pompey Magnus

BrianCalgary wrote: »

I have highlighted the areas of your post where you are reading into the thoughts and mind of the writer:

There I was speculating in favour of the current Christian stance on Mark's writing and was not making a definitive statement. I don't necessarily agree or disagree with what you highlighted because I, as I have said from the very start, do not know what Mark thought or believed.

When Paul came around he worked to explain the theology and truth behind Jesus, the gospel writers knew Paul and did not contradict his portrayal of Jesus as God incarnate and through whom salvation is attained.

How do you know that the Gospel writers knew Paul, and correct me if I am wrong, but didn't only one Gospel writer, John, made the claim that Jesus was God incarnate whose death brought salvation meaning three Gospels did not make such a claim?

Show me others that are genuine? There are none. I will take the word of a person from teh time of Acts and the first century church as to what are genuine scripture and what are not over the word of a modern day scholar.

The first person to claim that there were only certain Christian scriptures which were authoritive was Marcion in the 2nd Century and he certainly didn't agree with the current Christian canon. It wasn't until the 4th Century that the New Testament as it is now was finalised as the 27 authoritive writings so it isn't correct to say that Christians knew from the 1st Century what was true and what was false.

The reason we know the four gospels to be tru is that they were accepted as such at the time. They were written within 50 years of the events portrayed. All the other 'gospels' you mention were written over a hundred years after by people who could not have known Jesus or any of His disciples directly.

I think 50 years is pretty optomistic in dating the Gospels, Mark is usually dated around 65-70 AD and John is usually dated around 95 AD which makes it a 65 year timespan from Jesus' death to the accounts being written. By this stage the Gospel of the Nazarenes may also have been in circulation as may the Coptic Gospel of Thomas.

It seems that we do agree though that in order for a Gospel to be authoritative it is necessary for the author to have known Jesus or some of his disciples directly. We differ in that you accept that the four Gospel writers did this whilst I don't see any reason for believing this.

JoBlog

That Jesus had been both with God and actually was God before his birth is clear from the opening words of the Gospel of John.

But there are many indications that when this person became man that he was no longer God:

He speaks a lot in the gospel of John about God the father teaching him and said that the works (=miracles?) which he did were actually the works of the father. Paul in Phil2v6-7 says that when he became man he "being in the form of god, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant".

I find it helpful to know that Jesus was a real human when on earth and was not both God and Man at the same time. When you get used to this unorthodox viewpoint, you realise that anything else would be a cheat!

This person who had been God became a real man and died a real death and was raised to eternal glorious life by God his Father. The same potential is there for us real men and women!

Filangi

This is long...but please take the time to read it!

JESUS often prayed to God, whom he called Father, and he also taught others to do so. (Matthew 6:9-11; Luke 11:1, 2) In prayer with his apostles—only hours before his death—Jesus petitioned: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your son, that your son may glorify you. This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.”—John 17:1, 3.

Jesus prays to One whom he calls “the only true God.” He points to God’s superior position when he continues: “So now you, Father, glorify me alongside yourself with the glory that I had alongside you before the world was.” (John 17:5) Since Jesus prayed to God requesting to be alongside God, how could Jesus at the same time be “the only true God”?

Jesus’ Position in Heaven

A few hours after this prayer, Jesus was executed. But he was not dead for long—only from Friday afternoon till Sunday morning. (Matthew 27:57–28:6) “This Jesus God resurrected,” the apostle Peter reports, “of which fact we are all witnesses.” (Acts 2:31, 32) Could Jesus have resurrected himself? No, according to the Bible, the dead “are conscious of nothing at all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5) “The only true God,” Jesus’ heavenly Father, resurrected his Son.—Acts 2:32; 10:40.

A short time afterward, Jesus’ disciple Stephen was killed by religious persecutors. As they were about to stone him, Stephen was granted a vision. He stated: “Look! I behold the heavens opened up and the Son of man standing at God’s right hand.” (Acts 7:56) Jesus, “the Son of man,” was thus seen by Stephen in a role supportive to God in heaven—“at God’s right hand”—even as he had been ‘alongside God’ before he came to earth.—John 17:5.

Later, after Stephen’s execution, Jesus made a miraculous appearance to Saul, better known by his Roman name, Paul. (Acts 9:3-6) When Paul was in Athens, Greece, he spoke of “the God that made the world and all the things in it.” He said that this God, the “only true God,” will “judge the inhabited earth in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and he has furnished a guarantee to all men in that he has resurrected him from the dead.” (Acts 17:24, 31) Here the apostle Paul described Jesus as “a man”—yes, lesser than God—whom God had restored to life in heaven.

The apostle John too described Jesus as subordinate to God. John said that he had written his Gospel so that readers might come to believe that “Jesus is the Christ the Son of God”—not that he was God. (John 20:31) John also received a heavenly vision in which he saw “the Lamb,” who in his Gospel is identified as Jesus. (John 1:29) The Lamb is standing with 144,000 others, who John says “have been bought [or resurrected] from the earth.” John explains that the 144,000 have the Lamb’s “name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads.”—Revelation 14:1, 3.

Could “the Lamb” be the same as “his Father”? Clearly not. In the Bible they are distinct. They even have different names.

Name of the Lamb and of the Father

As we have just seen, the name given to God’s Son, the Lamb, is Jesus. (Luke 1:30-32) What about his Father’s name? It appears in the Bible thousands of times. For example, Psalm 83:18 says: “You, whose name is Jehovah, you alone are the Most High over all the earth.” Sadly, God’s name, Jehovah, has been replaced in many Bible translations by the terms “LORD” and “GOD,” often spelled in all capital letters. The capitals are supposed to distinguish Jehovah from others called gods or lords.* Yet, in many Bible translations, the Divine Name has been restored to its rightful place.

The English-language American Standard Version (1901) is a notable example of a Bible translation that has restored God’s name, Jehovah, to its rightful place. Its preface observes: “The American Revisers, after a careful consideration, were brought to the unanimous conviction that a Jewish superstition, which regarded the Divine Name as too sacred to be uttered, ought no longer to dominate in the English or any other version of the Old Testament, as it fortunately does not in the numerous versions made by modern missionaries.”

The Trinity—Whose Teaching?

What, then, about the teaching that Jehovah and Jesus are, in effect, the same God, as the Trinity doctrine proclaims? In its issue of April-June 1999, The Living Pulpit magazine defined the Trinity this way: “There is one God and Father, one Lord Jesus Christ, and one Holy Spirit, three ‘persons’ . . . who are the same or one in essence . . . ; three persons equally God, possessing the same natural properties, yet really distinct, known by their personal characteristics.”#

Where did this complex Trinity teaching originate? The Christian Century, in its May 20-27, 1998, issue, quotes a pastor who acknowledges that the Trinity is “a teaching of the church rather than a teaching of Jesus.” Even though the Trinity is not a teaching of Jesus, is it consistent with what he taught?

The Father—Superior to the Son

Jesus taught his disciples to pray: “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Our heavenly Father, whose name is Jehovah, is described in the Bible as being superior to his Son. For example, Jehovah is “from everlasting to everlasting.” But the Bible says that Jesus is “the firstborn of every creature.” That Jehovah is greater than Jesus, Jesus himself taught when he said: “My Father is greater than I.” (Matthew 6:9; Psalm 90:1, 2; Colossians 1:15; John 14:28, King James Version) Yet, the Trinity doctrine holds that the Father and the Son are “equally God.”

The Father’s superiority over the Son, as well as the fact that the Father is a separate person, is highlighted also in the prayers of Jesus, such as the one before his execution: “Father, if you wish, remove this cup [that is, an ignominious death] from me. Nevertheless, let, not my will, but yours take place.” (Luke 22:42) If God and Jesus are “one in essence,” as the Trinity doctrine says, how could Jesus’ will, or wish, seem different from that of his Father?—Hebrews 5:7, 8; 9:24.

Furthermore, if Jehovah and Jesus were the same, how could one of them be aware of things of which the other was not? Jesus, for instance, said regarding the time of the world’s judgment: “Concerning that day or the hour nobody knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father.”—Mark 13:32.

The Trinity and the Church

The Trinity is not a teaching of Jesus or of the early Christians. As noted previously, it is “a teaching of the church.” In its 1999 issue on the Trinity, The Living Pulpit observed: “Sometimes, it seems that everyone assumes that the doctrine of the trinity is standard Christian theological fare,” but it added that it is not “a biblical idea.”

The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967) discusses the Trinity at length and admits: “The Trinitarian dogma is in the last analysis a late 4th-century invention. . . . 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.”

Martin Werner, as professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland, observed: “Wherever in the New Testament the relationship of Jesus to God, the Father, is brought into consideration, whether with reference to his appearance as a man or to his Messianic status, it is conceived of and represented categorically as subordination.” Clearly, what Jesus and the early Christians believed is far different from the Trinity teaching of churches today. From where, then, did this teaching come?

The Trinity’s Early Origins

The Bible tells of many gods and goddesses that people worshiped, including Ashtoreth, Milcom, Chemosh, and Molech. (1 Kings 11:1, 2, 5, 7) Even many people in the ancient nation of Israel once believed that Baal was the true God. So Jehovah’s prophet Elijah presented the challenge: “If Jehovah is the true God, go following him; but if Baal is, go following him.”—1 Kings 18:21.

The worship of pagan gods grouped in threes, or triads, was also common before Jesus was born. “From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity,” observed historian Will Durant. In the Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, James Hastings wrote: “In Indian religion, e.g., we meet with the trinitarian group of Brahma, Siva, and Visnu; and in Egyptian religion with the trinitarian group of Osiris, Isis, and Horus.”


* See, for example, Psalm 110:1 in the King James Version. Both Jesus and Peter quoted this verse.—Matthew 22:42-45; Acts 2:34-36.
# The Athanasian Creed, formulated a few hundred years after the death of Jesus, defined the Trinity this way: “The Father is God: the Son is God: and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods: but one God.”

kelly1

Thanks Filangi, but no thanks. Heresy isn't my cup of tea!

Filangi

kelly1 wrote: »

Thanks Filangi, but no thanks. Heresy isn't my cup of tea!

thats fair enough:)....but im only showing what the bible says on the matter. most religions are teaching false doctrines which have absolutely nothing to do with the bible so i just feel that by showing what it really teaches then some people will get the proper answers to their questions.

kelly1

Filangi wrote: »

thats fair enough:)....but im only showing what the bible says on the matter. most religions are teaching false doctrines which have absolutely nothing to do with the bible so i just feel that by showing what it really teaches then some people will get the proper answers to their questions.

If you consider that Jesus is one Person with two natures (human and divine) then the Holy Trinity makes sense. When Jesus says that the Father is greater than He, He is speaking in His human capacity, not as the 2nd person of the Trinity. The same applies when Jesus said "why do you call me good? God alone is good".

Húrin

kelly1 wrote: »

Thanks Filangi, but no thanks. Heresy isn't my cup of tea!

Filangi appears to be advocating Jehovah's Witness views, but if he bothered to type all that he surely deserves a more lengthly response. The only reason I'm not is because... I don't have time.

PDN

Filangi wrote: »

thats fair enough:)....but im only showing what the bible says on the matter. most religions are teaching false doctrines which have absolutely nothing to do with the bible so i just feel that by showing what it really teaches then some people will get the proper answers to their questions.

And a very merry Christmas to you, Filangi. I'll save you a slice of black pudding.

robindch

Filangi wrote: »

This is long...

...and was copied straight from:

http://www.watchtower.org/e/20050422/article_02.htm

Season's greetings!

Fanny Cradock

Well spotted!

Filangi, as you are new here, you may not be aware that it is customary to link to the source and also tell people what you are up.

Filangi

robindch wrote: »

...and was copied straight from:

http://www.watchtower.org/e/20050422/article_02.htm

Season's greetings!

copy and paste....its alot quicker than typing it all out myself!!! i was gonna have www.watchtower.org as my signature but dont have enough posts.

Filangi

PDN wrote: »

And a very merry Christmas to you, Filangi. I'll save you a slice of black pudding.

hahaha!!! funny! :cool:

Filangi

kelly1 wrote: »

If you consider that Jesus is one Person with two natures (human and divine) then the Holy Trinity makes sense. When Jesus says that the Father is greater than He, He is speaking in His human capacity, not as the 2nd person of the Trinity. The same applies when Jesus said "why do you call me good? God alone is good".

Matthew 24:36 "concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the son, but only the father" Jesus said this himself about the end of this system of things. If Jesus was God then this doesnt make sense.

John has alot of info on this:
John 1:1" in the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God.."
If Jesus was God...then how could he be with him.
John 1:18 "no man has seen God at any time." Humans have seen Jesus.
Jesus makes a clear distinction between himself and his father...he calls him "the only true God". And towards the end of the gospel, John sums up matters by saying "These things have been written down that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God."
Back to that scrip in matthew 24:36... u ,and many others, say that this is true only regarding his human nature. But why does the holy spirit not know??if it is part of the same God?

That's all the research iv come up with so far...but there's so much info on this subject that id be here for days writing it all out (i didnt paste this one!!ha)it's hard to get it fully across on a forum. There's alot of research involved.

PDN

Filangi wrote: »

John 1:1" in the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God.."
If Jesus was God...then how could he be with him..

You missed out the next bit, didn't you?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

Filangi

PDN wrote: »

You missed out the next bit, didn't you?

MAN....u caught me!!! my fave scripture to try and explain to people !!!:eek: esp at this time of night/morning!!

can i give u a link???? i'm gonna anyway!! here goes.... http://www.watchtower.org/e/ti/article_08.htm
u havta scroll down the page a bit!