Reniaa: your last response to me makes me wonder; either you are just trying to stir up crappola ar you have mental issues. Which is it.
The Son in two persons
by Deputy Dog 332 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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jonathan dough
Reniaa wrote:
Can Jesus be a spirit creature called a god/divine have access to god's power and not be the One true God? just be God's Actual "firstborn of creation" son?
REPLY: If I understand your English, of course, some of the power. Peter raised the dead. What is your point? Can you reword your question? It doesn't really make sense.
Reniaa wrote: this allows for Jesus to die when God can't die
REPLY: Except that redemption is impossible unless Jesus is divine in the Trinitarian sense. The reward is higher and requires more than an equivalent fleshly ransom.
Reniaa wrote: this allows for God to know things Jesus doesn't
Reniaa wrote: this also allows for the multiple birth/creation references to Jesus in regards the start of his prehuman existence inc proverbs 8.
Reniaa wrote: The bible sets the precedent that things other than the One True God can be called gods without being the One true God why does this have to be different for Jesus?
REPLY: I'm not sure I follow you. If you are saying that if Jesus was just a man then God would know things Jesus didn't, I can't argue with that but that doesn't really prove anything. Jesus had limited knowledge of some things as explained here at http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-3.html#13
It has to be different for Jesus (he was not just a god) because if it was not then there would be no salvation for mankind. But again, you are begininning your analysis with a "misunderstanding" a "why not" statement when you should begin with the fact that the Bible proves that Jesus was, and is, God. Everything else falls into place.
Proverbs 8 is weak at best and the interpretation given it by the JWs has been refuted my numerous scholars, like Bruce Metzger:
7. The passage in the Old Testament to which Jehovah's Witnesses
(and Arians of every age) appeal most frequently is Proverbs
8: 22 f.'O The translation usually given is the following, or something
similar to it: "Jehovah made me [that is, Wisdom, interpreted
as the Son] in the beginning of his way, before his works of old."
This rendering understands the verb ;lJa to be used here with the
meaning "to create." The true translation of this passage, however,
accorcling to a learnecl study by the eminent Semitic scholar, F. C.
Burney, must be, "The LORD begat me as the beginning of his
way. . . ." The context favors this rendering, for the growth
of the embryo is described in the following verse (verse 23, where
the verb appears, as a footnote in Kittel's Hebrew Bible suggests,
to be from the root T=)P "knit together," as in Job 10: 11 and Psalm
139: 13), and the birth of Wisdom is described in the two following
verses (24 and 25). Thus, in the context, the verb ;?Jp in verse 22
appears with certainty to mean "got" or "begot."
111 m y case, however, irrespective of the meaning of the Hebrew
verb in Prov. 8: 22, it is clearly an instance of strabismic exegesis, if
one may coin the phrase, to abandon the consistent New Testament
representation of Jesus Christ as untreated and to seize upon a disputed
interpretation of a irerse in the Old Testament as the only satisfactory
description of him. The proper methodoloby, of course,
is to begin with the Keiv Testament, and then to search in the Old
Testament for foregleams, types, and prophecies which found their
fulfillment in him. By Bruce M. Metzger published in Theology Today (1955).Or, as I wrote at http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-6.html#33 :
The Messiah of the Old Testament stems from eternity - (Micah 5:2; Proverbs 8:22) [ Top ]
The Messiah is described at Micah 5:2 as being from eternity (Hebrew olam), hence without beginning. Green’s Literal Translation of Micah 5:2 states:
And you, Bethlehem Ephratah, being least among the thousands of Judah, out of you he shall come forth to Me, to become ruler in Israel; and His goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.
“Olam” means “eternity; remotest time; perpetuity, i.e., the vanishing point; gen, time out of mind (past or future), always, ever, everlasting, perpetual” (Strong and Vine’s, 205).
Reference to Christ’s prior eternal existence is also found at Proverbs 8:22 where many commentators equate Wisdom with Christ.
Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of His way, from then, before His works I was set up from everlasting (Hebrew olam), from the beginning, before the earth ever was (Proverbs 8:22 Green’s Literal Translation).
“Wisdom is of divine origin. It is here represented as a being which existed before all things (22-26) and concurred with God when he planned and executed the creation of the universe, …” (NAB notes 8,22-31).
The Jehovah's Witnesses’ New World Translation, and a few other Bibles, translate “possessed” as “created,” implying that Christ (Wisdom) had a beginning. But this misinterpretation ignores the middle of the sentence which states that Wisdom existed from everlasting (olam), that is, eternity. Christ (if indeed Wisdom) is eternal, from the beginning, of eternity, before God’s work, not as the first product of God’s works, just as Paul says at Col 1:17: “He is before all things.” He was not created but rather “set up” or “poured out” (Hebrew Nacak) as one pours out an existing libation, or casts existing metal or anoints an existing king (Strong and Vine’s, 188).
The Jehovah's Witnesses attempt to minimize these verses with Revelation 3:14 which they interpret to mean that Christ was the “beginning” (Greek arkhe) of all creation, the first thing created.
And to the angel of the congregation in Laodicea write: These are the things that the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God,… (NWT)
Trinitarians believe arkhe is properly interpreted as “source” or “active cause,” that the Word is the source of all creation.
Here, the Jehovah's Witnesses’ interpretation relies to a great extent on the fact that “Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon lists “beginning” as its first meaning of arkhe (Oxford, 1968, p. 252) (Reasoning, 409). Be that as it may, whereas “arkhe” can mean “a beginning” it also can mean “source” (NAB) or “active cause” (Strong and Vine’s, 43). This harmonizes with John 1:3, that all things were created by Christ (“and without Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being” (Green’s Literal Translation). As he could not have created Himself, and existed before He would have been created, He must be the source by and through which all things were created as the eternal Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
Because the Word was before all things (Colossians 1:17) and he created all things (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16), it excludes His being created. He is the source of all creation, the active force.
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reniaa
hi jon
I am not confused at all, I like taking scriptures literally :) it's the best way for them to be read.
To be honest the whole immortality of the soul is a great put off because it denies the whole premise of "this means eternal life knowing you the one true God and the one you sent" if we are already immortal, what need for the sacrifice?
It also smacks to closely of the promise of satan to eve of not dying but thats a different argument.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to me shall we call it a quits and agree to differ?
Reniaa
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jonathan dough
Reniaa wrote:
hi johnathan
circular reasoning! come on, you cannot say Jesus is God because God cannot die. Jesus clearly did die therefore he isn't God.
The burden of proof is to show Jesus is The "one true God" in the first place which he himself denies and is attributed only to his Father specifically.
1 Corinthians 8:6 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father,
You can't accept "the word becomes flesh" as literal and exactly how the scripture puts it is because Jesus is God is a weak argument and again latches onto the assumption that Jesus is God.
All the scriptures that clearly show Jesus isn't the One true Almighty God you have to ignore or deny.
So really you must proof Jesus is the "One true God" before you can build all your hypostatic unions either Word/flesh or triune threesome.
And I believe that the bible shows us the exact opposite.
Reniaa
REPLY: You're opening up a can of worms now and sending this thread off into the hinterlands. First, it is not just me making the argument but the entire Catholic church and Protestant denominations. I have sound backing by many, many eminent theologians that reach back 1,600 years, including Scripture itself. It is not just "an assumption." That was the entire point of Nicaea 1 and the refutation of Arianism which is the religion JWs basically follow. It was this basic principle, the divinity of the Word, that Jesus was, and is, God, that set the entire thing in motion. There is no circular reasoning to this. It is all one package, and quite logical. If there is a burden of proof that Jesus is God then it has been met, in spades. Libraries the world over are filled to the rafters with legions of proof. Mountains of proof. It staggers the imagination. Conversely, your burden of proof (I can tell you are getting help with your answers, "burden of proof" is a legal term of art in the USA) is to prove Jesus was not divine, not God, that he was just a man and nothing more. That is an impossible task. Utterly impossible. This one you can't get out of, but feel free to give it a try.
Read the exhaustive treatise at http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-5.html#20
With respect to your statement:
"The burden of proof is to show Jesus is The "one true God" in the first place which he himself denies and is attributed only to his Father specifically.
1 Corinthians 8:6 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father,"
my RESPONSE is that it was the creature Jesus, the created humanity of Christ which trinitarians do not teach is the Almighty (as explained to you ad nauseum), who acknowledged the Father, and who recognized that the Father was and is greater than He was. Read the introduction to my web site if you are still confused. Actually, your confusion is giving me reasons to keep repeating myself for the benefit of those out there confused on the matter. Thank you.
Kindest regards,
JD II
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jonathan dough
Reniaa wrote:
Thank you for taking the time to reply to me shall we call it a quits and agree to differ?
Reniaa
REPLY: Heck no. I'm just getting started. Bring it on! JWs are not Christians in the Christian sense and are misleading many, many people. There is something very dark and sinister going on there. The proof that they are in the wrong is staggering. But I say this out of respect because I know that there are many, many fine decent JWs, God's people in fact, who happen to be trapped in a very bad place. My job is to help get the ones who want out, out.
:)
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isaacaustin
J Dough, thanx for that post on Prov 8- very informative. The WT misrepresents much in their 'arguments'...great expose!
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jonathan dough
Reniaa wrote:
hi jon
1 john 5:20 is a play on translations and wording to try with smoke and mirrors make it appear like the 'one true God' refered to is Jesus when it is in fact his father.
1 John 5:20 (New International Version)
20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
he who is true has a son Jesus and so it is "he who is the true" that is the true God that is refered to here not Jesus
REPLY: No, it is not a play on words or smoke and mirrors but follows sound grammatical constructs. More importantly, it conforms to the insecapable biblical truth that Jesus was, and is, God: see http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-5.html#20 . It is a perfect match.
JD II
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Leolaia
There is always a modalism aspect to trinity while they insist 3 separate persons can be one God at the same time. Adam and eve are said to be one, so as one does that make them one human but 2 persons? no of course not they remain 2 persons and 2 humans/adams. they is the only biblical comparison trinitarians can use but they have to insist Jesus, God and HS are not 3 Gods but One God but still 3 separate persons. There is no biblical grounds for this reasoning it's read into it to support their hypothesis.
reniaa....Your analogy is a poor one on many grounds. It takes a metaphor pertaining to marriage (becoming one flesh) and equates it with a theological concept of the oneness of God. It conflates theology and anthropology (equating the nature of God with the nature of man), thereby anthropomorphizing God in human terms. It ignores the contrast between the spiritual and the physical. It ignores the contrast between the uniqueness of God (required by monotheistic theology) and the open-ended class that humans belong to.
To say that "there is always a modalism aspect to [the] trinity" shows that you do not understand either concept. Modalism denies the very separateness that you say is part of the trinity doctrine ("3 separate persons [as] one God at the same time"). It is one way of harmonizing the belief in the deity of Christ with the monotheism inherited from Judaism, another way is the binitarian/trinitarian concept of distinction without division (as Tertullian put it), that God includes an internal relation without being divided into two or more gods. In contrast to this, modalism has no concept of an internal relation and thus does not construe the Son as having a seperate existence alongside the Father. Without a relation between the Son and Father, you would have incongruieties like Jesus praying to himself. But that is not what binitarianism/trinitarianism claims. And as I said before, modalism is very much a rabbinical Jewish view of God. It is the kind of monotheist theology expressed by the proto-orthodox rabbis who recognized that God presented himself as like a young warrior to Moses when he split the Sea of Reeds to deliver Israel, and then afterward presented himself as like an old wise lawgiver when he delivered the Law on Mount Sinai. There were debates on whether these two self-presentations of God constituted separate co-existing hypostases (as held in the "two powers of heaven" heresy), or whether God constituted only a single person who showed himself in different guises. Binitarianism in rabbinical Judaism became viewed as heresy (while it became the standard orthodox view in Christianity), whereas in proto-orthodox Christianity it is the standard rabbinical view that came to be viewed as heretical (where it is known as modalism).
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jonathan dough
Well done, Leolaia.