by Witness 007 343 Replies latest jw experiences
Maybe these scriptures will help too;
Colossians2:9 "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form"
Hebrews 1:3 " The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being"
John 8: 58 "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" - compare this with Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "
Peace, Lilly
Burn,
How can you say the use of "full-color pictures, nice layout, lots of quotes and citations" is "dangerous" when your unnecessarily long dialogue between Dan and Mike is filled with illustrations and comparisons, some of which present a distorted view?
What I think is distorted are some of the denials you use. For example, there are three-headed gods among the ancient pagans, and non-trinitarians compare those three-headed gods with the Catholic and Protestant Trinity. But if, as you say, the God of the Bible is a Trinity, why in the Bible are there no hints of him having three heads? God is always spoken of as "He," never as "They".
The dialogue admits that church and pagan gods with three heads are similar, but you say the pagans were portraying three gods whereas the churches have only one God in mind. Then why does church artwork use such pagan representations? Why deny that the teaching is confusing, unreasonable and unscriptural? If Trinitarians worship only one God, why do they use illustrations that pagans employ to portray three gods? It would seem that Trinitarians bow before three gods, after all, and not the God who was worshipped as the one true God by the Jews. At John 4:22, Jesus said regarding himself and the Jews of his day, "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews." Jesus our Savior worshiped, not a Trinity, but the same unitary God that all other godly Jews worshiped. (John 20:17)
To illustrate that three can mean "one," you refer to a family where several persons compose "one" family. In other words, your Trinitarian god is a committee of three persons. But the Bible doesn't teach that God is a family or a committee. Rather it says that he is alone, by himself, that there is none else, that he is one, that there is none beside Him, etc. (Isaiah 43:10, 11; 44:8, 24; 45:5, 6, 21, 22; 46:9) Many times in the Bible He is called the Holy One, but He is never called the Holy Three. (Isaiah 41:14; 49:7)
fjtoth
there is no need for me to argue the diety of Christ..All one has to look at is John 1:1, whether it states "a" god or "the" god..the title remains as such at its still "god", its the ranking of the actual word 'god' that is the difference.
Is Jehovah THE GOD? Yes
Has Jesus been called GOD in John 1:1? Yes
Where we have to shift is how we think of the word itself, we - by nature and how we were instructed to think is that when we say GOD, its always THE GOD (nothing wrong with that), but we have to realize that if THE GOD, has called his only begotten son GOD (yes he has), then we do not need to argue his place.
For kicks (not related - I think)
THE GOD (Jehovah)
GOD (Jesus)
Archangel (at least Michael and Gabriel) - some would say they are angel's - I say they are as well - just they are not regular angels..higher ranking
Angels (unknown but many)
Spirits (many spirits)
Man
Woman
A total of 7 type of beings..God's perfect number...probably does not mean anything..just was thinking today on this.
I do not believe in the 3 in 1 teaching but there is a plurality used in scriputure regarding the Father and the Son. God said let "us" make man in "our" image. Also Jesus said "I and the father are one" using the word neuter which means "same thing".
The 3 in 1 Godhead does seem to be borrowed from pagans. The Holy Spirit to me is clearly not a person, although "he" is used sometimes for it. If we look back in the OT we can see that God's Spirit was also mentioned and never as a person with its own reasoning ability. God sent it forth - which is what the Catholic Church says.
I think the trinity concept developed over time. And was used to help explain the concept of God's Spirit which is something that we cannot "see" with our eyes.
Maybe the church fathers should have left it alone and let the NT explain the Holy Spirit on its own? Lilly
Lovelylil,
It isn't scholarly to claim that the "us" in Genesis is a reference to Jesus. For example, the New International Version Study Bible in a footnote on Genesis 1:26 says, "us . . . our . . . our. God speaks as the Creator-King, announcing his crowning work to the members of his heavenly court (see 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8; see also 1Ki 22:19-23; Job 15:8; Jer. 23:18)."
On Genesis 11:7, a footnote says, "let us . . . God's 'Come, let us' from above counters proud man's 'Come, let us' (v.4) from below."
The footnote for Isaiah 6:8 says, "for us. The heavenly King speaks in the divine council. As a true prophet, Isaiah is made privy to that council, as were Micaiah (1 Ki 22:19-20) and Jeremiah (23:18,22). Cf. Ge 1:26; 11:7; Am 3:7."
Other reference works speak similarly.
fjtoth
fjtoth,
Thanks for that info. Lilly
How can you say the use of "full-color pictures, nice layout, lots of quotes and citations" is "dangerous" when your unnecessarilylong dialogue between Dan and Mike is filled with illustrations and comparisons, some of which present a distorted view?
What I think is distorted are some of the denials you use. For example, there are three-headed gods among the ancient pagans, and non-trinitarians compare those three-headed gods with the Catholic and Protestant Trinity. But if, as you say, the God of the Bible is a Trinity, why in the Bible are there no hints of him having three heads? God is always spoken of as "He," never as "They".
The dialogue admits that church and pagan gods with three heads are similar, but you say the pagans were portraying three gods whereas the churches have only one God in mind. Then why does church artwork use such pagan representations? Why deny that the teaching is confusing, unreasonable and unscriptural? If Trinitarians worship only one God, why do they use illustrations that pagans employ to portray three gods? It would seem that Trinitarians bow before three gods, after all, and not the God who was worshipped as the one true God by the Jews. At John 4:22, Jesus said regarding himself and the Jews of his day, "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews." Jesus our Savior worshiped, not a Trinity, but the same unitary God that all other godly Jews worshiped. (John 20:17)
FJTOTH, I think you need to interact with author of that article I pasted in LOL. I didn't write it, so I won't try to defend the length and style of it. These are not the point of the thread anyway but a distraction. As for some of your points:
God is always spoken of as "He," never as "They".
Genesis 1:26,27: Then God* said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...So God created man inhis own image, in the image of God he created him.
*"Elohim" is the common name for God in the old testament. "Elohah" is singular. However Elohim is what gets used. Elohim is a plural noun. Think about that.
The dialogue admits that church and pagan gods with three heads are similar, but you say the pagans were portraying three gods whereas the churches have only one God in mind. Then why does church artwork use such pagan representations?
The representation itself is not pagan. The application is, or is not. The Temple in Jerusalem had artwork of griffin-like cherubim, even on the Ark of the Covenant itself, and there was also the bronze snake that Moses made. The "bronze sea", or pool at the temple stood upon bronze bulls.
The snake-on-a-pole and griffin motifs were not unique to the religion of Israel:
Why would Jehovah's temple have such representations in common with pagan Sumerian deities?
My point is: It is not the thing that is bad (or not), but how it is used.
Burn
Of my understanding (I will attach a link) - Elohim is not the only word in Hebrew than can be plural in form but can actually be singular as well
Just as aside issue the bronze snake moses used that healed the hard hearted israelites from the snake-bites is an interesting scripture because it later had to be destroyed becuase israelites started worshiping it, a nice reminder of the dangers of making images :) even if they are originality meant for another purpose humans soon start treating them like idols.
In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah [see Kings of Israel and Judah], began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah.""And he did what was right in the eyes of The Lord, according to all that David [see King David] his father had done. He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had burned incense to it; it was called Nehushtan."
"He trusted in The Lord the God of Israel; so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to The Lord; he did not depart from following Him, but kept the Commandments [see The Ten Commandments and The Ten Commandments Now?] which The Lord commanded Moses." (2 Kings 18:1-6 RSV)
Back to trinity, you can see the struggle of the 3-1 concept for some they daren't allow for the 3 headed- representation because it really shows it up as a pagan teaching, and really all the scriptures people show are about jesus, holy spirit never gets hardly a mention of those they do try to twist, certainly in proving what they are trying to prove they should have early scriptures mentioning all 3 having a conversation or would that take us back to having a 3 headed God again :S
Of my understanding (I will attach a link) - Elohim is not the only word in Hebrew than can be plural in form but can actually be singular as well
That article is from the Worldwide Church of God. They are another mind-control cult like the JWs. Isn't it funny how all these cults reach the same conclusions regarding Jesus?
Steve Hassan's link
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/w/wcog/
More cult info:
