Jesus was given the title of a God and only he was permitted to be along side his Father, Yahweh, outside of the reality he later created for us. That is why Jesus asked that Father glorify him alongside Himself, not within, as was done before the world was created. At one time Christ existed outside in eternity along side his Father in sharing His glory. All things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, no matter whether they are thrones or lordships or governments. All things came into existence were created through Christ and for Christ.
Utter nonsense. He wasn't given merely the title of God, but was God, God the Son. There is so much scriptural proof to back this up, any notion that Jesus was just a man and nothing more is unfounded and heresy.
It's all right here in great detail:
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-5.html#20
Because Jesus was, and is, God-man, sometimes he spoke as God the Son, and sometimes as man. And contrary to what the JWs tell you, mainstream Christianity teaches that the created humanity, the creature of flesh born to Mary, is not God. Understand this and much of the Watchtower's theology comes crumbling down.
All things came into existence were created through Christ and for Christ.
True, but that doesn't help your case any. If all things were created for Christ, then it proves that He was God, because one can't also have all things created for YHWH. They are mutually exclusive.
This illustrates a fundamental flaw in the Jehovah's Witnesses’ analytical process, their inability to reconcile two “apparently” conflicting concepts which do not conflict at all. Galatians 1:1 states that God raised up Jesus, but John 2:19-22 says that Jesus raised himself. Rather than reading both passages together, they discard one in favor of the other. Or ignore it. Or try to reason it away, or just change the Bible to accommodate their theology, but in so doing they violate their own often repeated admonition to read different verses pertaining to a particular topic together.
Looking at Scripture from their point of view, then, the Bible would be full of irreconcilable contradictions: both Jesus and God can’t be Lord, but there is only one true Lord in the highest sense (Ephesians 4:5). Both Christ and God if separate entities can’t be Savior granting eternal salvation, yet there is only one such Savior (Isaiah 43:11; Titus 1:4, 2:6). If Jesus is God and the Father is God and there can only be one God, there is no contradiction in the Trinitarian world, but not so with the Jehovah's Witnesses whose answer lies in reducing all of Jesus to the status of man and denying the divine unity, nothing more.
If Jesus is alone in “having immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16 Green’s Literal Translation) it would mean, for the Jehovah's Witnesses, that the Almighty is not immortal, but we know that is not true (Isaiah 57:15). Similarly, all things were created and exist for God, but all things were created for Jesus as well (Colossians 1:16). And, Isaiah 44:24 states that God made all things, but at John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 it is the Word who made all things and all things were created through Him and for Him, to mention just a few of these examples.
And, if there is only one true God (John 17:3) and Jesus is the true God (1 John 5:20), is there really a conflict? Not if you believe in the triune God which supplies a very reasonable answer if you take the time to understand what the doctrine actually teaches. These apparently mutually exclusive concepts aren’t exclusive at the expense of one or the other, but must be read together and combined which leads to only one conclusion - Jesus was, and is, God.
The Almighty would never inspire such blatant contradictions in His Bible, and He didn’t. So if God raised up Jesus and the divine Person of Christ raised himself then Jesus must be God if one is to give weight and meaning to both passages within the Trinitarian context.
Jesus, the God-man, was called God repeatedly, was called God the Son, and Jesus referred to himself as God Almighty. I'm not going to copy and paste all of the verses that back this up because there so much evidence it will clog up the thread and I'll start looking like Larsinger or AGuest. It's all in that link I provided, and more.
"That is why Jesus asked that Father glorify him alongside Himself, not within, as was done before the world was created."
First off, no Bible I've read says "alongside Himself" at John 17:5 if that's what you're referring to; not one, and there's quite a few. Rather: "And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." If the NWT says "alongside" they changed their Bible to support their non-trinitarian arian heretical views. And with respect to "not within as before," you need to provide something more concrete than that; no rabbits out of the hat on this one. You're referring to the indwelling, which also is widely attested to in Scripture. No where does the Bible state that the preincarnate Word before creation (immanent trinity), God the Son, stood beside the Father like two humans. And even if it did, it doesn't negate the indwelling at all. You need to think in terms of spirit.
Just to remind you, and the readers, the Jehovah's Witnesses preach, incorrectly, that trinitarian Christians teach that the created humanity of Jesus, the creature, is God Almighty; but that is also false. Orthodox Christians - the overwhelming majority of Catholic and Protestant churches - teach that: “The humanity of Christ is a creature, it is not God” (Catholic Encyclopedia, 922).
At one time Christ existed outside in eternity along side his Father in sharing His glory
Wrong again. "Christ" the "God-man," didn't exist before being born to Mary; God the Son did, but not the created humanity, the man. The created humanity that is not God is not part of the trinity before creation, the man part. You, like many other JWs, confuse immanent trinity with economic trinity. Here's a simple explanation to clear up your confusion.
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index.html#2
Proof texts that Jesus was, and is, God.
The Holy Spirit or Active Force is an extension of God, it is not an individual entity in its own right.
John 16:12-13 "I still have many things to tell you, but you can't bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak whatever He hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, because He will take from what is Mine and declare it to you."
The Comforter or Spirit of truth) that Jesus was speaking of at that time was God's Active Force. When Jesus said, "For He will not speak on His own" he was referring to the fact that the Active Force always works in conjunction with God's will, for the Active Force is an extension of God's.
"For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak whatever He hears."
Jesus revealed that his Father's Active Force is always in union with the Father
When we think of an extension of our bodies, we think of legs, arms, fingers, toes, etc. God is a spirit, and his Active Force is alive, and can be in many places at one time.
No. The Holy Spirit is not excluslively an active force. There is too much evidence, as I pointed out, that the NT makes it clear that the Spirit is personified also. It's unmistakeable. And Trinitarians do not teach that the Spirit is a separate entity from the Father. That is not what they teach. God is the Spirit, and Christ is the Spirit. And Christ is in the believer, not merely in union with the believer.
Romans 8:9-11 also makes a strong statement that the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ both dwell in the believer, and accordingly the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ since there is only one Spirit (Ephesians 4:4), an indwelling exemplified in a true Trinitarian fashion: God is in you, Christ is in you, and the Holy Spirit which proceeds from both (in the Latin Western tradition) is in you the true believer, all existing as one principle ultimately.
But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Sprit of God really dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you. (Romans 9:8-11 RSV)
Jehovah is the spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17 NWT; “the Lord is the Spirit” RSV)
“[T]here are many other implicit references, for example at Jesus’ baptism, where the Father speaks from the cloud and the Spirit descends as a dove upon the Son (Matthew 3.16-17). In Paul’s letters there are many examples of Father, Son and Spirit being closely linked in their activity. [I]n Ephesians he speaks of ‘one Spirit …one Lord … one God and Father’ (4.4-6). In 2 Corinthians he speaks of God establishing us in Christ and giving us the Spirit as a first installment (1.21-2). He said to the Galatians that ‘God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ (4.6)” (Oxford, 1208).
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-4.html
The Word’s relation to the Godhead, in the sense of being “with” God does not mean “mere company, but the most intimate communion” (Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words Compilated and Expanded upon in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible [Nashville, Tennessee, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001], 152) (Strong and Vine’s). This intimacy of the Word with God is a product of their mutual indwelling, among other things, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father (John 17:21 NAB). Furthermore, the Word (Logos) is the personal manifestation, “not of a part of the divine nature, but of the whole deity” (Strong and Vine’s, 152).
OK, let's look at this one chunk at a time...
You fail to understand what "person" means in the trinitarian context.
Definiton of person:
- A human being regarded as an individual.
- Used in legal or formal contexts to refer to an unspecified individual.
You're quoting the English dictionary for what the trinitarians believe a "person" is? You've got to be kidding. You're trying to put words in trinitarian's mouths that don't exist (not the mouths, the words).They specifically reject your English definition as a misnomer. And it is one of the Company's primary deceptions in attacking the Trinity, claiming to others it means something that it does not.
Persona: A Latin word regularly used to refer to the three ‘persons’ of the Trinity and to the one ‘person’ of Christ. It therefore fulfills the role in Latin theology performed by hypostasis in Greek. The natural translation into ‘person’ in English is misleading. Persona originally meant a ‘mask’ and then a ‘role.’ It is used to indicate an individual in his or her external presentation, and does not convey the idea of self-consciousness or the internal psychological content suggested by the English word ‘person’ with its close link to the word ‘personality.’ (Oxford, 1210)
(that's probably because the defintion of a person, is just that, an individual - what you just said about inner dialogue where people combined speak to each other indicates a split personality).
No, no, no. That's exactly what the trinitarians say it isn't. It's not an individual like you or me.
the hypostatic “Person” refers to a form in which the divine essence exists, not a created human, but three personal self-distinctions (The New Bible Dictionary [Grand Rapids, Michigan, W. M. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1962], 1300) (New Bible Dictionary).
In most formularies the doctrine is stated by saying that God is one in His essential being, but that in this being there are three Persons, yet so as not to form separate and distinct individuals. They are three modes or forms in which the divine essence exists. ‘Person’ is, however, an imperfect expression of the truth in as much as the term denotes to us a separate rational and moral individual. But in the being of God there are not three individuals, but only three personal self-distinctions within the one divine essence. (New Bible Dictionary, 1299, 1300)
Fourth, while each Person is self-conscious, He never acts independently.
[P]ersonality in man implies independence of will, actions, and feelings, leading to behavior peculiar to the person. This cannot be thought of in connection with the Trinity; each Person is self-conscious and self-directing, yet never acting independently or in opposition. (ibid.)
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index.html#3
Just like 'the Force' in Star Wars, the Holy Spirit is also fictitious. Within the biblical narrative, it seems to be given some personal attributes, but many of the interpretations are just fan fiction. It's not real, so it doesn't matter too much.
Isn't this the one unforgiveable sin?
I think some of you are confusing the Holy Spirit or Active Force as being a person.
Some of us? How about 2 billion Christians. And they aren't confusing anything because they recognize it is both, an active force and a spiritual person. How many times do we have to repeat that? we are dealing with spirit, not mere flesh.
By the way, I'm combining my responses to posts if you haven't noticed.
Turkey Break.
