by slimboyfat 225 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
After reviewing extensive evidence from rabbinical sources, Philo, early Christian and Gnostic writings, Alan Segal concludes:
Therefore we should continue to assume that the Christians were but one of a number of apocalyptic or mystical groups who posited a primary angelic helper for God. Page 262.
This view of Christ was persisted until the fourth century when it was replaced by Nicene Trinitarianism.
@Halcon,
One of the times Jesus predicted his self-resurrection is in John 10: 17-18 :
I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
If Jesus was not God, how did he resurrect himself from the dead? Doesn't make any sense.
@slimboyfat
You’re misrepresenting both Philo and Christian doctrine by conflating categories and assuming that Christian Trinitarianism is somehow rooted in or derived from Philo’s allegedly “creaturely” Logos. First of all, Alan Segal is not a Church Father — nor a neutral observer of Christian theology. Yes, Segal’s Two Powers in Heaven is a landmark academic work. But quoting Segal on how Philo viewed the Logos does nothing to undermine Trinitarianism, because Christianity does not derive its doctrine of the Logos from Philo. Philo is not a proto-Christian, nor did he speak with theological authority on Christian doctrine. Segal himself is not claiming that John intended to copy Philo’s Logos. He’s describing the philosophical context, not affirming the truth of the theology. In other words: what Philo or Segal thought about the Logos has no binding weight on what the Church confesses about the Word made flesh (John 1:14). Christian theology reinterprets and corrects the philosophical milieu in light of divine revelation — it doesn't merely absorb it.
Your use of Segal actually confirms my point: that there were varied Jewish speculations about mediators, wisdom, and divine action — but that does not mean those ideas are equal to or source material for the Christian Logos doctrine. Segal writes:
“So the logos, defined as the thinking faculty of God, can easily be described also as an incorporeal being, created for the purpose of carrying out His thoughts…”
Yes, and this exactly proves my earlier argument: Philo’s Logos was not a divine person consubstantial with God, but rather a philosophical abstraction adapted to a Jewish worldview — a kind of cosmic intermediary. This is the very contrast with John’s prologue.
John 1:1–3 corrects and transcends Philo:
Nowhere does Philo say “the Logos was God” in the same sense. He may assign divine functions to the Logos (as the Stoics and Middle Platonists often did with their intermediate agents), but he never crosses the threshold of identifying the Logos with the very essence of YHWH. John does — unequivocally. So Alan Segal’s reading of Philo simply reflects Jewish philosophical development, not apostolic revelation.
The Logos in Christianity is not “a creature outside of God’s being” — this is your Arian lens speaking, not Christian orthodoxy. Even if Philo believed the Logos was a “creature outside of God’s being,” that says nothing about what the Gospel of John or the Christian Church teaches. Christian orthodoxy affirms, that the Logos is
To say that John “adopted” Philo’s idea of a created Logos and applied it to Jesus is not only speculative and historically unjustified, it contradicts:
Even within Philo’s thought, the Logos is not easily reduced to “creature”. Philo is notoriously ambiguous on the status of the Logos. Sometimes he speaks of the Logos as the first-born Son (e.g., De Confusione Linguarum, 146), other times he calls it the image of God, or even “a second God” (De Somniis, I.229–230). In short: Philo wasn’t offering a systematic theology, and he didn’t hold a consistent view of the Logos. He was a Platonizing Jew wrestling with transcendence and immanence. But John's Logos is not Philo’s Logos — and the Church Fathers knew that.
You’re reading Christian doctrine through the lens of Arianism, not Scripture. Let’s say it clearly: Christian doctrine doesn’t teach the Logos is a “second God” or “lesser God.” We don’t affirm two gods, nor a created demiurge. Rather: "the Logos was God… and the Logos became flesh" (John 1:1, 14) — not a creature that later earned divine status. You are importing Arian categories (created Logos, exalted being) into the text — a position that was explicitly condemned at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and is refuted in Scripture:
This cannot be said of a created being. The Fathers were not dupes of Hellenism — they were careful exegetes of divine revelation who rejected the very idea you’re proposing: that the Logos is a creature.
While it's true that early Christianity emerged in a religious environment where various Jewish groups speculated about divine agents—Wisdom, the Logos, the Angel of the Lord—this in no way means that the Christian view of Christ was merely one more version of a “primary angelic helper” idea. The apostolic writings of the New Testament go far beyond any Second Temple Jewish model by affirming not just functional agency but ontological divinity. The Gospel of John opens not by calling Jesus an angelic mediator, but by declaring, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” No Jewish mystical group ever made that claim. The Word is not merely with God, like a servant or angel, but is God in essence—eternally preexistent, the one through whom all things were made (John 1:3).
Similarly, Philippians 2:6-11 presents Jesus as “existing in the morphḗ of God,” not as a creature promoted to divine status. The early Church Fathers, such as Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, explicitly affirmed the divinity and preexistence of Christ long before the Council of Nicaea. They did not describe him as an angel, nor as a created intermediary, but as “our God Jesus Christ” (Ignatius, To the Ephesians), and as the one who is “eternally co-existent with the Father” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.30.9).
Moreover, the idea that Nicene Trinitarianism “replaced” a supposedly earlier angelic Christology is a distortion. The Council of Nicaea did not invent the divinity of Christ—it formally clarified what the Church had always confessed in the face of the Arian heresy, which was a novel deviation, not a recovery of earlier tradition. The creed articulated the eternal generation of the Son, “begotten, not made,” and insisted on his consubstantiality with the Father, because this is what had been taught by the apostles and preserved in liturgical and theological traditions.
Gnostic sources, moreover, are not reliable witnesses to apostolic Christology. They represent radical departures from Judaism and Christianity alike, often blending pagan cosmologies, Platonic dualism, and speculative myth with borrowed Christian language. To argue that their portrayal of Christ as a divine intermediary reflects the mainstream Christian view prior to Nicaea is to mistake fringe sectarian distortions for apostolic teaching.
Alan Segal’s observation that some Jews and Christians posited divine agents does not prove that Christianity originally saw Jesus as a high angel. Rather, it proves that the category of divine agency was present and provided a context for early Christians to understand and redefine those roles in light of the Incarnation. The New Testament writers do not reduce Jesus to the level of a helper—they worship him, call upon his name, and equate him with YHWH himself, as seen in texts like Romans 10:13 and Hebrews 1, where the Son is declared superior to the angels, worshiped by them, and addressed by the Father as God.
In short, the claim that Jesus was viewed "primarily" as a high angel until the fourth century is contradicted by both Scripture and the earliest patristic testimony. The Church did not "evolve" from an angel-Christology into Trinitarianism; it defended the eternal divinity of Christ from the beginning and rejected any reduction of him to a creature—no matter how exalted.
Aqwsed-Jesus clearly claimed He had the authority to lay down His life and to take it up again. In John 10:17-18, He said: “I lay down my life that I may take it up again… I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” That is not a passive role—it’s an explicit declaration of divine power over life and death. Moreover, in John 2:19, Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Verse 21 explains that “He was speaking of the temple of His body.” After the resurrection, John 2:22 says that His disciples remembered He had said this and believed.
Excellent verses, and excellent defense my friend.
I say the same to you Seabreeze. Excellent defense by means of the scriptures.
Why miss out the last part of John 10.18 which says that Jesus was commanded to take back his life by his Father?
Jesus receives his life back from his Father in John 10.18 under his Father’s instructions.
No man takes it away from me, but I surrender it of my own initiative. I have authority to surrender it, and I have authority to receive it again. This commandment I received from my Father.”
It’s the same Greek verb used twice in the verse, yet many (Trinitarian) translations use “take” in the first instance and use “receive” in the second for some reason. 🤔
Moreover, the idea that Nicene Trinitarianism “replaced” a supposedly earlier angelic Christology is a distortion. The Council of Nicaea did not invent the divinity of Christ—it formally clarified what the Church had always confessed in the face of the Arian heresy, which was a novel deviation, not a recovery of earlier tradition. The creed articulated the eternal generation of the Son, “begotten, not made,” and insisted on his consubstantiality with the Father, because this is what had been taught by the apostles and preserved in liturgical and theological traditions.
aqwsed12345,
As usual, you have provided a mountain of evidence confirming the divinity of Christ from the earliest apostolic times.
The storyline that heretics are really restoring lost and forgotten truths is a total fabrication.
@slimboyfat
You claim that since Jesus says, “This command I received from my Father,” this implies that Jesus had no authority of His own, and merely received back His life passively. But this interpretation is inconsistent with both the language Jesus uses and the broader New Testament teaching.
Yes, the Greek word λαβεῖν (infinitive aorist active of lambanō) can mean both "to take" and "to receive", depending on the context. But context is king, and here Jesus clearly frames both laying down and taking back His life as active expressions of His own divine authority:
“I have authority (ἐξουσίαν ἔχω) to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” (John 10:18)
This is not passive reception. Jesus is not being acted upon; He is acting. Moreover, the contrast Jesus draws is explicit:
“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself.”
(οὐδεὶς αἴρει αὐτὴν ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐγὼ τίθημι αὐτὴν ἀπ᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ)
— John 10:18
So when Jesus says He “received this command from His Father,” He’s speaking of His Messianic mission, not of lacking power or agency. He is voluntarily submitting to the Father’s will — a will that He shares, as John 10:30 makes clear: “I and the Father are one.”
When Jesus says, “This commandment I received from My Father,” He is not suggesting ontological inferiority or dependence in essence. The Son, in His incarnate role, speaks as the obedient Servant, the one who fulfills the Father’s redemptive plan — freely, not under compulsion. Jesus’s whole life and mission are marked by loving submission to the Father — but it’s submission within the Trinitarian harmony, not because He is a lesser being. Philippians 2:6-8 makes this clear: “Being in very nature God… He humbled Himself…” That humility presupposes His divine nature.
You downplay John 10:18, but Jesus elsewhere reiterates His active role in His resurrection:
So the claim that Trinitarians mistranslate λαβεῖν is false. The verb can mean “take,” “receive,” or “take up”, and in this context, Jesus’ clear emphasis on His own authority — “I have authority to take it again” — demands an active sense. It is entirely consistent in Scripture for:
This doesn’t suggest three gods or contradictions. It reflects the Trinitarian teaching: one God, three Persons, fully sharing the divine nature, power, and will. The Son shares the authority of the Father — not as a lesser being, but as the eternal Logos, the one who was with God and was God (John 1:1).
In conclusion, your reading of John 10:18 fails to account for:
Jesus did not just “receive” His life back in passive obedience — He laid it down and took it up again with divine authority. That’s what He said. And we must take Him at His word.
“I can do nothing on my own authority. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” John 5.30
@slimboyfat
Quoting John 5:30—“I can do nothing on my own authority”—to deny Jesus' divine agency in His resurrection profoundly misrepresents the context and meaning of that passage. Far from being a statement of weakness or inferiority, it affirms the perfect unity between the Son and the Father in will, judgment, and divine action. Jesus is not saying that He lacks divine authority in Himself. Rather, He is speaking as the obedient Son, who, in perfect harmony with the Father, acts not independently in opposition to the Father but in concert with Him. The phrase “I can do nothing on my own” (οὐ δύναμαι ποιεῖν ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ οὐδέν) is not a confession of incapacity but a declaration of inseparable unity. It echoes John 5:19, where Jesus says:
“The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”
This means that the Son does everything the Father does—in the same way, including resurrection:
“My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” (John 5:17)
“As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.” (John 5:21)
And that includes judgment:
“The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.” (John 5:22–23)
This is not subordinationism; this is divine identity. Hence Christ does not question that He is equal to God — which He would have had to do if He were not — but rather states that the divine works of the Son are also the works of the Father. The Son can only do what He beholds in His divine essence, which He received from the Father; and thus, He does everything that the Father does, insofar as the Son operates with the same divine power as the Father. They work equally, because they are completely equal in nature; only where there is no equality of being can there be no equality in mode of operation. That this refers exclusively to divine actions is self-evident, because those divine acts of the Son which were also human — for example, His sufferings — can only be called acts of the Father insofar as they were in accord with His will, but not as acts proper to Him; for the Father did not become man together with the Son. Insofar as the Incarnation introduced a certain distinction of being between the Father and the Son, the God-man’s actions could not be proper acts of the Father.
No mere creature can give life “to whom he will” or demand that all people give him the same honor as the Father. The claim that Jesus is merely an “agent” misunderstands what kind of agency He possesses. He is not like Moses or a prophet, temporarily commissioned and ontologically distinct from the Principal. He is the eternal Son, who has life in Himself, just as the Father does (John 5:26). This is a shared divine attribute—aseity—which no created being can possess.
So when Jesus says in John 5:30, “I can do nothing on my own authority,” He is expressing His perfect unity of will and action with the Father—not an inability, but an inseparability (cf. Perichoresis). Augustine rightly comments that this means Christ judges “not without the Father,” because all divine acts are performed in unity. He judges “as He hears,” not because He is an ontologically subordinate receiver, but because His hearing and judgment are part of His divine knowledge, which He possesses eternally from the Father. As the Church Fathers observed, the Son’s divine will is not “another” will; it is one with the Father’s. Furthermore, your objection ignores John 10:17–18, where Jesus says with absolute clarity:
“I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
Here, Jesus explicitly claims active authority in His own resurrection. The verb “take up again” (λαβεῖν) is not passive. It is set in parallel with “I lay it down,” both governed by the repeated phrase “I have authority.” This is Jesus’ own interpretation of His role—not as a passive recipient, but as one who acts with divine power. And when Jesus says He received a command, He is not denying His power. He is affirming the Trinitarian harmony of mission: the Son’s work is the Father’s work, but this mission is carried out with divine authority shared within the Godhead.
Your interpretation also conflicts with John 2:19, where Jesus says:
“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
And John clarifies: “He was speaking about the temple of His body.” (John 2:21)
This is unambiguous: Jesus declares He will raise Himself from the dead. The Gospel of John affirms both the Father’s role (John 5:21; Acts 2:24), and the Son’s active role (John 2:19; 10:18), and the Spirit’s role (Romans 8:11) in the resurrection. This is not a contradiction. This is the Trinitarian unity: one divine action, one divine will, three Persons inseparably working together.
Lastly, the “agency” model some anti-Trinitarians invoke cannot explain this level of divine prerogative. Jewish agents never claimed to be honored as God is honored, to have life in themselves, or to judge the world on the Day of the Lord. Jesus does all these—and then says, “that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.” (John 5:23)
No created agent can receive the same honor due to God without blasphemy—unless that agent is Himself divine.
Therefore, John 5:30 does not diminish Jesus’ authority, nor does it conflict with His power to raise Himself. It affirms the Son’s divine identity, inseparable unity with the Father, and the perfect harmony of the Trinity in the work of salvation.
Imagine somebody made the following statement:
God took back his life because he was commanded to do so.
It doesn’t make any sense, because there are two major problems with that, 1) God can’t give up his life in the first place and 2) God can’t be commanded to do anything by anyone.
Yet Jesus gave up his life and took it back because he was commanded to do so in John 10.18. Draw your own conclusion.
Jesus explicitly claims active authority in His own resurrection.
Jesus explicitly stated that he was given all authority by God. (Matt 28.18) Where is the verse where God says “all my authority was given to me”. Clearly this is something God would never say. The fact that Jesus says it is again proof (as if it were needed) that Jesus is separate from and subordinate to God in the NT.
