by Dawn 37 Replies latest watchtower bible
Willy Think you made some great points. It is the basis of the belief in the Trinity that Jesus is God. In the Christian church that debate occurred over 1500 years ago and landed on the creed that Jesus "was begotten not made, God from God, true God from true God, being one with the father by whom all things were made".
The doctrine of the Trinity precludes the notion that Jesus was at anytime Michael.
Dawn,
The scriptures that say that Jesus is God disporove the Watchtower claim that Jesus is an angel.
In addditon the scriptures show that Jesus is also still a man, which also disprove the Watchtower concept of him being an angel.
It was a "man" whom God raised from the dead (Acts 17:31).
The mediator "is" (present tense) a "man" (1 Timothy 2:5).
No angel can sit at God's right hand (Hebrews 1:13-14).
There is a "man" at God's right hand (Hebrews 10:12; Psalm 80:17).
The world to come is not subject to angels (Hebrews 2:5), but to "man" (Hebrews 2:6-8).
RR:
I'd be interested to know just where that quote from John Wesley came from. I have scanned about 20 related to topic of 142 of his documented sermons for theses key words and found nothing. In fact he has much to say on the contrary. Also of the 142 sermons there is not one with which he has any verse of the book of Daniel.
Could you please let me know where you found this quote?
I've added some interesting tidbits from his various sermons. His first explanation of earthquakes must have been good resource material for the doomsayers of the late/early 19th century.
Earthquakes are set forth by the inspired writers as God's proper judicial act, or the punishment of sin: Sin is the cause, earthquakes the effect, of his anger. So the Psalmist: "The earth trembled and quaked; the very foundations also of the hills shook, and were removed, because he was wroth" (Ps. 18:7)
Sound familiar?
Here's a Gem!!
To take the matter from the beginning: "The Lord God" (literally, JEHOVAH, the GODS; that is, One and Three) "created man in his own image;" -- in his own natural image, as to his better part; that is, a spirit, as God is a spirit; endued with understanding; which, if not the essence, seems to be the most essential property, of a spirit.
No wonder the WT gets Jesus & Jehovah mixed up!
On TRUE religion
Here then we see in the clearest, strongest light, what is real religion: A restoration of man by Him that bruises the serpent's head [Gen. 3:15], to all that the old serpent deprived him of; a restoration not only to the favour but likewise to the image of God, implying not barely deliverance from sin, but the being filled with the fullness of God. It is plain, if we attend to the preceding considerations, that nothing short of this is Christian religion. Every thing else, whether negative or external, is utterly wide of the mark. But what a paradox is this! How little is it understood in the Christian world; yea, in this enlightened age, wherein it is taken for granted, the world is wiser than ever it was from the beginning! Among all our discoveries, who has discovered this? How few either among the learned or unlearned! And yet, if we believe the Bible, who can deny it? Who can doubt of it? It runs through the Bible from the beginning to the end, in one connected chain; and the agreement of every part of it, with every other, is, properly, the analogy of faith. Beware of taking any thing else, or anything less than this, for religion! Not any thing else: Do not imagine an outward form, a round of duties, both in public and private, is religion! Do not suppose that honesty, justice, and whatever is called morality, (though excellent in its place) is religion! And least of all dream that orthodoxy, right opinion, (vulgarly called faith) is religion. Of all religious dreams, this is the vainest; which takes hay and stubble for gold tried in the fire!
Will, the quote is taken from the book: John Wesley's Explanatory Notes on the Bible.
YOu can find the book online, just do a search with the above title.
Ok, found it. That sure is a stretch! Do you agree with most of what he says?
Dan 12:1 "Now at the time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise....
Is this where he blows his horn to announce the 2nd coming?
or
Is this not a reference to earlier in chapter 10:13? But the prince of the kingdom of Presia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me...
a demon had come over persia and archangel michael wins out and stands guard over the people of God?
I think the use of the word messiah in this explanitory notes should go along side his reasons for earth quakes. Although the word messiah has many "hero" qualities. Going by his sermons, writings from the 1500s I would have to say that he does not think that Jesus is Michael as you can see by his explanitary notes here
REV. 22:12So this does nothing to prove Jesus is Michael because the author clearly does not believe this to be the case.
I - Jesus Christ. Come quickly - To judge the world. And my reward is with me - The rewards which I assign both to the righteous and the wicked are given at my coming. To give to every man according as his work - His whole inward and outward behaviour shall be.
22:13
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last - Who exist from everlasting to everlasting. How clear, incontestable a proof, does our Lord here give of his divine glory!
You can quote me as saying that the world is flat!
Matthew Henry
Seems to me, using these guys that say Jesus is Michael, is very misleading. Daniel was written way before Jesus' time or the NT.
Henry's 1-4 that you quoted above only says that Michael points out the saviour, and in the rest of his commentarys he agrees with John and is fully convinced in all pertinent passages that Jesus is God!
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.I know that you are probably not that interested but there might be others that need to learn to check all sources.Austin says (de Civitate Dei, lib. 10, cap. 29) that his friend Simplicius told him he had heard a Platonic philosopher say that these first verses of St. John's gospel were worthy to be written in letters of gold. The learned Francis Junius, in the account he gives of his own life, tells how he was in his youth infected with loose notions in religion, and by the grace of God was wonderfully recovered by reading accidentally these verses in a bible which his father had designedly laid in his way. He says that he observed such a divinity in the argument, such an authority and majesty in the style, that his flesh trembled, and he was struck with such amazement that for a whole day he scarcely knew where he was or what he did; and thence he dates the beginning of his being religious. Let us enquire what there is in those strong lines. The evangelist here lays down the great truth he is to prove, that Jesus Christ is God, one with the Father. Observe,
I. Of whom he speaks--The Word--ho logos. This is an idiom peculiar to John's writings. See 1 John i. 1; v. 7; Rev. xix. 13. Yet some think that Christ is meant by the Word in Acts xx. 32; Heb. iv. 12; Luke i. 2. The Chaldee paraphrase very frequently calls the Messiah Memra--the Word of Jehovah, and speaks of many things in the Old Testament, said to be done by the Lord, as done by that Word of the Lord. Even the vulgar Jews were taught that the Word of God was the same with God. ...........
Well all those commentators were trinitarians, but yet believed Michael was Jesus. Go figure!
That can't be RR, trinitarians would not support the worship of angels. Is it Hebrews where that is specifically spelled out?
Maybe it was just Daniel that dreamed this connection and the commentators comment on it then people read the comments, then try to start a religion! Thats why they end up in trouble in the NT.
huh?
RR, What about Russells teaching that Michael was an angel who worshipped Christ, hense Michael was NOT the son of God. Shouldn't Russell the FDS have known about this?
First Hoo, before you make a claim, please show us on this forum, where such a statement from the pen of Russell can be found.
