I'm so glad I no longer believe in God or the Bible.
Mysteries and coverups and puzzles, oh my!
Can't y'all see this topic is as twisted as the WT's new take on "generation"?
New Book: Jehovah is Jesus! Not Michael.
by Cold Steel 31 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Cold Steel
I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are many evidences of both God and the Bible. I just haven't been very impressed with the level of JW scholarship. To most casual readers of scripture, it's fairly obvious that Yahweh was Jesus. What Mrs. Barker has done was show that there is a tradition that supports what the early Christians surmised, and that is that Yahweh was the Son, not the Father. Further, that He is the God of Israel and was the one with whom Moses communed. In Psalms 110:1-2, David writes, "The Lord saith unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand til I make thy enemies thy footstool." Who was David's Lord? Jehovah, or Yahweh. So who told David's Lord to sit at His right hand?
When someone sits at someone's right hand, it means they are subordinate. Here the Father is telling the Son, "Sit thou at my right hand til I make thine enemies thy footstool." So if Jesus was David's Lord, then He must have been Yahweh. How Pastor Russell missed that one is beyond me. Alexander Cambell noticed it. So did Joseph Smith, Calvin, Martin Luther and many other religious minds. One reason this topic seems twisted is because of the varioius traditions that have existed throughout the years, many of them false, but some apparently true. Most scholars agree that many of the sayings in some of the Gnostic texts were actually uttered by Jesus -- this because many of the other sayings they used were documented as authentic. There's no way we have all the scriptures that the early Christians considered as authentic.
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Cold Steel
<<I think the issue seems to be what is being stated is that Jesus was A son of God, implying that he was oen of many, rather than THE Son of God being being in Nature, God, a opposed to a created "son of God", like the angels. >>
Yep, but we don't know what they believe when they said that. It could be nonsense or it might be something that they understood which we don't know about today. The sonship of Yahweh is what's intriging. Yahweh was David's Lord, yet a Lord greater than He said, "Sit thou at my right hand til I make thine enemies thy footstool." If David's Lord was not Yahweh, we have a major theological problem. The early Christians pointed to Psalms 110:1-2 as evidence that Jesus was Jehovah. Yet even the Christians most often referred to Jesus as subordinate to God. Stephen saw Jesus (Jehovah) on the "right hand" of God (Elyon/Elohim). In almost every occasion they referred to Jesus as "Lord" (as Jehovah was known in the Old Testament) and God as "God". The Lord is Jesus, but the Father is God. And Jesus was "one" with the Father. That means that in all things both Jesus and the Father were of one accord. Some people believe that the term Elohim is inclusive of that oneness, being the plural form of God. And in Genesis, Elohim said, "Man has become as ONE of US."
It's very interesting.
But it's something Pastor Russell should have caught in his review of the scriptures. That he misidentified the Father as Yahweh isn't going to condemn anyone, but it means that he erred on something that was, in hindsight, pretty simple. The JWs have to either reevaluate their theology and correct their error, or they must stubbornly cling to it. If they correct it, they lose some credibility (but not as much as missing Armegeddon by a country mile on numerous occasions). I also believe them to be in error on interpreting the gathering of Israel to be spiritual rather than literal. If one examines Zachariah 12 and 14 closely, one sees that the "Jerusalem" of the last days has to be literal. But in the early 1900s, it just wasn't happening. By 1950, *poof!*, Israel was a nation again. And their enemies were "round about" just as Zachariah indicated they would be. Armegeddon will not happen to the world, but will happen to Jerusalem -- the real Jerusalem. Isaiah, in chapter 11, talks about the Lord setting his hand "a second time" to recover His people. Well, the first time was after the Babylonian conquest. When the Romans scattered them in 70 A.D., the Jews were dispersed for the second time. Now they have been gathered a second time. (And there's even a more interesting aspect to that.)
Believers in biblical prophecy should keep their eye on the Middle East. And when Gog comes down from the North, Yahweh will come to their aid. When his foot touches upon the Mount of Olives, one will say to Him, "What are these wounds in they hands?" And he will reply that He received them in the house of His friends. Then the scriptures say the land will go into mourning and lamentation. Why? Because the Jews will realize who their Messiah is. Not only that, the other nations round about will suddenly realize they were snookered by Islam, and that they will have to make major readjustments. (See chapter 14 of Zachariah). Again, Yahweh must be Jesus, because He will have wounds in His hands.
God actually addresses Gog in Ezekiel 38, so if he hasn't come yet, who is he? He is the same as "the Beast" in Revelation, the Antichrist. When he comes to power, probably in Europe, he will gather a huge army and take it down to afflict Jerusalem. By that time, the Jews will have probably built their temple, which raises the question of what happened to the Muslim Dome and mosque. If these crumble in, say, an earthquake, and the Jews build them temple in its place, then I suspect that would be why Gog would want to strike. Still, all of this continues to point to the fact that Jesus and Yahweh are the same, and that He will fill the Messianic expectations.
As BlackSheep noted, the Catholics believe that Jesus is Jehovah, but that He is not the Father. Only the modalists believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all One Being manifesting Himself as three beings. As one old pastor of mine said, "I can be a son to my father, a father to my children and a husband to my wife, all at the same time." Or, as others note, "God is like ice. It can be a solid, liquid or gas."
Yes, lots of gas in my view!
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tec
God is like ice. It can be a solid, liquid or gas."
I think the saying is that God is like water... solid (ice), liquid (water), gas (steam)
I find it funny that I only know of this comparison because of Bill Mayer's Religulous ;)
Doesn't bring me any closer to believing in the trinity or not, but it is a good comparison.
Tammy
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tec
"The Lord saith unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand til I make thy enemies thy footstool." Who was David's Lord? Jehovah, or Yahweh. So who told David's Lord to sit at His right hand? - Cold Steel
I would just like to point one thing out about this.
The scripture actually reads:
The LORD says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."
LORD in capitals is used every time the tetragrammaton appears in scripture. So this is really Yahweh/Jehovah (whatever translation you prefer) says to my Lord...
So Yahweh/Jehovah tells David's Lord to sit at his right hand.
Right?
This topic can drive a person bananas. Studying it until you're blue in the face can also take the focus off the fact that... whoever Jesus was in preexistence, He represents his Father in Heaven, perfectly. Listening to Jesus is listening to his Father. Jesus and His Father are one.
"This is my son. Listen to Him."
I'm going to focus on that.
Tammy
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PSacramento
The Trinity is just and attempt to understand the nature of God, Jesus and the HS, to understand their relationship to each other, it is nothing more and nothing less.
I see Jesus as the One and ONLY begotten Son of God, as such he is God in nature ( for he can't be anythign else), and through Jesus all was created.
I can interpret that view in a few ways:
Jesus is the son of God, period.
Jesus is LIKE/Same as God in nature and is our creator.
Jesus is God, for all intents and purposes, though he defers to God as His and Our Father.
Jesus is EQUAL to God, but choose to be subordinate, he is the same as God, but is unique as God is Unique.
I can go on, but my point is that from MY simple view of Jesus I can make many interpretations.
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Cold Steel
<<LORD in capitals is used every time the tetragrammaton appears in scripture. So this is really Yahweh/Jehovah (whatever translation you prefer) says to my Lord... So Yahweh/Jehovah tells David's Lord to sit at his right hand.>>
Actually, this is probably a mistranslation. The early Jews didn't understand this scripture, so they put the tetragrammaton on the first Lord. Since David's lord was Yahweh, we have to assume that the first Lord was the Father. The KJV reads: "The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool."
In Matthew 22 we read:
While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, "What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?"
They say unto him, "The son of David."
He saith unto them, "How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, 'The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?' If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?" And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.
It's quite clear that Jesus, or Yahweh, was David's lord. It could be that they used the tetragrammaton incorrectly since the Supreme Being here was the Lord of David's Lord. If you identify the first being as Jehovah, then who is David's Lord, identified with Jesus? The scripture makes no sense. It would imply a relationship with the Son that is nowhere else explained.
But that's not the only place. Jehovah is the First and the Last, so is Jesus. Jehovah is the judge of all the nations; so is Jesus (for the Father judges no man, see John 5:22). The Father only communicates with man to bear witness of the Son, no more, no less. It is the Son, or Yahweh, who conveys all knowledge to man.
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EndofMysteries
Cold Steel - just a suggestion.....(not sure if your belief in Jesus/Jehovah as the same entity is just because you read something from someone else in which that made sense to you, or you through your own personal study, were headed that way and saw someone else confirming your thoughts. If it was the 2nd, you had been studying it on your own, don't stop, that's the tip of the iceberg. There are many further adjustments and much more understanding to be had if you continue. (If you just read someone elses ideas and thought it makes more sense....no suggestions then lol)
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Cold Steel
Thanks, EoM.
The Jehovah's Witnesses based their entire belief system on not only the identity of Yahweh, but in their identification with Him as God. Many people then end up with a faulty belief system with trust in self appointed leaders. This will not result in their being rejected of God, but it will lead to a terrible misunderstanding of Diety. When one understands that Yahweh is the Mediator between Elyon and Man, one is more fully able to understand Jesus' role in our salvation and His interaction with the prophets. In other words, Jesus just didn't pop into the world as an incarnation of Michael (another son of God), but as an incarnation of Yahweh, Himself, as His name implies.
If the combined leadership of the WBTS cannot correctly ascertain the true nature of God, and if they do not have the benefit of the gifts of the Spirit, then they are not capable of leading the people than anyone else. Thus, it always bothers me to hear someone say, "Jehovah and His Son, Christ Jesus." Barker's scholarship bolsters the idea that Yahweh is Jesus, something the early Christians took as a matter of record. If Jesus was the one mediator between God and Man, then Yahweh must be that mediator, not Michael, the Prince of Angels. Jesus, it was said, had authority over all angels, and Zachariah and others indicated that it was Yahweh who would touch down on the Mount of Olives, and the Jews would see the wounds in his hands and feet. Also it was Yahweh who was "pierced," not Michael.
Both Yahweh and Jesus were the First and the Last. Both were to judge the nations. Jesus told the Jews, "Before Abraham was, I Am." The Jews knew just what he meant and took up stones to kill Him. In fact, the Septuigent uses the same term for "I Am" as it does in the New Testament. Jesus was clearly saying, "Before Abraham was I Jehovah."
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tec
Actually, this is probably a mistranslation
Since David's lord was Yahweh, we have to assume that the first Lord was the Father.
( I agree that the first Lord is the Father, and that the second is Jesus)
I'm also not trying to nitpick here, but I put the key words in bold. Its only probably a mistranslation if you're trying to make it fit with a certain theory - and while that mistranslation is certainly possible, this is not a fact. You also have to assume that David was not speaking through the spirit and looking ahead to Christ - as his Lord.
Jesus is God is just as plausible. (same titles given between OT/NT)
The trinity is just as plausible - in all its many forms. (same titles given again)
Jesus is the Son of God (without being God) is also plausible. (same titles given, yes, but something that could be expected if all authority had been granted to a son - even by human standards, at least in that time)
I don't want to derail you or your search. I certainly don't want to argue. But I don't think it is quite as clear as you say.
Peace to you,
Tammy