Difficulties understanding passage.

by s-c-3-1-3 57 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

jonathan dough

I am reading Colossians 1:15-18, and understand it to mean that Jehovah created Jesus who then created all other things in the world, thus Jesus crall things except for God who created him. Is this correct?
Isaiah 43 proves that Jesus did not create "all other things." God in the flesh would just confirm the oneness of Jesus and Jehovah, would it not? Also, John 14:28 says that Jehovah is greater than Jesus, but then again in John 10:30 it says Jehovah and Jesus are one. Both of these can't be right. Just out of curiosity, is a Jehovah Witness allowed believing Jesus is God?
I can't tell if you're serious or just like watching a good fight. If you're genuine, you have a lot to learn, more then can be explained in one thread.
I suggest you start here:
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index.html
The Word, God the Son, was not created:
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-6.html#27
He was firstborn, but not created:
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-6.html#31
He was begotten, but not created:
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-6.html#32
Irenaeus (d. 200 A.D.) saw the Son and Spirit’s roles as the two hands of the Father.
Speaking to the Son in the third person (self-communication within the Trinity), verse Heb. 1:10 is an Old Testament passage directed to God Almighty but “redirected to Jesus” (NAB notes 1, 8-12): At the beginning, O Lord, you established the earth, And the heavens are the works of your hands.
"and without him was not any thing made that was made" John 1:3.
And if he was before all things, he could not be a thing, which is why the JWs added [other]. They realize that problem.
Ultimately, the Trinity is difficult to understand, but it is the only way that all of the scripture contradictions can be correct. Because the Watchtower Society cannot understand the concept, it changes the Bible to make it "easier to understand" or to fit with its understanding.
True, but not that difficult to understand. Understanding that Jesus was, and is, God-man goes a long way to clearing up the apparent confusion.
designs

erbie, Stephen, jd- You need to seriously do some homework on Judaism, your filters are so off the mark its almost funny. Try a Judaic encyclopedea if your phobia to speaking with a Rabbi is to great.
s-c-3-1-3

Hi Jonathan Dough,
First, I am a Christian who is exploring the Jehovah's Witness beliefs, because if they feel that they have the truth, maybe they do. I am trying to be open, but I have to ask questions that confuse me and hopefully can be explained in a way that proves the Jehovah's Witnesses have the truth. Is this okay with you?
designs

sc3- You are starting off with premises that need some foundational work in the history and cultures of the time Jesus of Nazareth is said to have been around. Jews, like later Islamists, are montheistic and not in the way Christianity has tried to retrograde the idea to fit their concept of one-god. Egypt was successful in designing the triad concept centuries earlier under Hellenistic tutelage. Greek trained Paul was the perfect foil for de-Judaizing Jesus into a Hellenistic triad god.
jonathan dough

Hi Jonathan Dough,
First, I am a Christian who is exploring the Jehovah's Witness beliefs, because if they feel that they have the truth, maybe they do. I am trying to be open, but I have to ask questions that confuse me and hopefully can be explained in a way that proves the Jehovah's Witnesses have the truth. Is this okay with you?
If it wasn't okay I wouldn't have provided you with those resources. Best wishes with your search. Many on this site are mere trolls, playing the Devil's advocate out of a perverse desire to see sparks fly. Some pretend to be ex-JWs with fictitious stories to tell that make JWs look very bad, and thereby bear false witness; though many of the stories are most likely true. And some of the threads are started by JWs who want to know the arguments, the weaknesses in their theories, so they can provide answers to their people, regardless of how weak. One such example is the Oct. and Nov. defense of the false theory pertaining to the destruction of Jerusalem in 607. In the months leading up to those publications, JWs intentionally drew out the opposition to probe our weaknesses, of which there are few, and discover the nature of the enemy's forces, theologically speaking.
May I suggest digging through older posts. These issues you bring up have been beaten to death in great detail over the years. And do some outside research. Begin with the links I provided you.
http://www.144000.110mb.com/
Black Sheep

Also, John 14:28 says that Jehovah is greater than Jesus
No, it doesn't. Not even in a NWT.
John 14:28 YOU heard that I said to YOU, I am going away and I am coming [back] to YOU. If YOU loved me, YOU would rejoice that I am going my way to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am. (NWT)
The Watchtower seldom touches on the Trinity as described by mainstream Christianity. Most of their articles trashing the Trinity are actually having a go at Modalism. Their game plan usually offers a modalist viewpoint which they portray as Trinitarian before pulling out scriptures they hope will confuse the prospective recruit. If the target doesn't fully understand the Trinity doctrine they get away with it.
Tell me, s-c-3-1-3, where did you get your definition of the Trinity? What is it? How well do you feel you understand it?
The Catholic's definition is in their encyclopedia. I doubt that most mainstream Christian religions would disagree with it.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm
This is Walter Martin's description.
Within the unity of the One God there are three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and these three share the same Nature and attributes. In effect then, the three Persons are the One God.
Cheers
Chris
jonathan dough

because the Father is greater than I am. (NWT)
Mainstream Christianity teaches that the created humanity of Jesus is not God: “The humanity of Christ is a creature, it is not God” (Catholic Encyclopedia, 922). Accordingly, Jesus, the man in the God-man equation, could pray to His Father and acknowledge His Father’s superiority without committing any doctrinal contradictions. He could even claim inferiority, temporary, while his deity as God the Son was veiled during his incarnation.
Trinitarians are fully aware that the created humanity of Jesus was inferior to God, that He was not equal to God in every way. The created humanity of Jesus knew that the Father was his superior.
Existence and Nature of Human Will. Moreover, works of honor are attributed to Christ, such as prayer, obedience, merit, which cannot proceed from the divine will, since they are manifested to a superior. They can proceed only from a created will. In His Incarnation the son of God assumed a perfect human nature, at the same time retaining His perfect divine nature. (Catholic Encyclopedia, 948)
Thus, when the created humanity of Jesus prayed to his Father, he was not praying to himself as the Jehovah's Witnesses mistakenly claim. He was praying to the infinitely superior God, His Father.
The Holy Spirit is not considered inferior to the Father and the Son in the way in which the Son, because of the human nature which he has assumed, testifies that he is inferior to the Father and the Holy Spirit (Denz 527)…. (Catholic Encyclopedia, 96)
http://www.144000.110mb.com/trinity/index.html#2
designs

The 'redemption theme through the self sacrifice of a divinity is even more explicitly delineated in the ritual drama of Osiris, the paramount divinity in the religion of Egypt. In order to atone with his death for the human race and thereby bring it to redemption, Osiris achieved incarnation in human form. It was said that he, like Jesus, had long foreseen the inevitability of his sacrifice, it being recorded in the Egyptian scriptures The Book Of The Dead. The sacrifice, death and resurrection of the Greek god Adonis and of the Babylonian divinity Tammuz followed a similar pattern of the eternal renewal of life on the earth in the rites of spring. Justin Martyr, early in the second century, blamed it all on magical foresight of evil spirits'. Judaic encyclopdea p.108-109

Difficulties understanding passage.

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