AWAKE - April 22nd (page 2)

Big Dog

Stilla, sure, if it is all a big fairy tale I agree, I was operating on the assumption of a basic belieft in the Bible, God, Jesus, etc.

JustTickledPink

Or it is all part of a big story in the bible and there was no Jesus therefore the trinity is irrelvant anyway

That is my opinion. Jesus might have lived but his legend has surpassed what he was as a human a hundred times over. I think he was a great person, either way, trying to reform the religion of his day, he was a rebel!!! BUT, I don't believe he was God, or superhuman or anything else. So to me it's irrelevant.

But I can think of it in this way, if you have 3 boxes, all a bit smaller than the next one, you can easily fit them inside each other. It's ain't that hard to understand.

jgnat

They next quote "The Historians' History of the World". This appears to be an early encyclopaedia, originally written in the early 1900's by Henry Smith Williams, a twenty volume set published by the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. I wonder what the Encyclopaedia Brittanica says today?

"The history of the life, work, and death of Jesus of Nazareth reveals nothing of the worldwide movment to which he gave rise...None of the sources of his life and work can be traced to Jesus himself; he did not leave a single known witten word. Also, there are no contemporary accounts written of his life and death. What can be established about the historical Jesus depends almost without exception on Christian traditions, especially on the oldest material used inthe composition of the first three New Testament Gospels.." (The New Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 15th edition, vol. 10, p. 145, pp 2)

It bugs me when the Watchtower society mixes pseudo-facts with their theology. I think this habit comes from their relatively modern foundation, established at the rise of technology, industry, and scientific discovery. I can see also how they would want to distance themselves from "Christian Traditions". I mean, their whole reason for existence is that they, uniquely, have rediscovered the "true" Christianity buried under accretions of "Christian Traditions".

At the end of the day, honest Christians have to admit that their belief in Jesus is based on faith, not on historical accuracy.

A householder may ask, "Why is the Watchtower quoting from outdated sources?"

jgnat

The article goes on to give the various examples where it appears that Jesus himself claims no divinity. Of course, they do not quote scriptures that ascribe divinity to Jesus.

Here's a trinitarian argument in part, taken from "Answers to Tough Questions"

How could Jesus be both God and man at the same time?
One of the strongest statements in Scripture about the incarnation is found in 1 John 4:2-3:
This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
Many of the battles within the church in the first 400 to 500 years of its existence were centered on the need to define the relationship between Christ's divine and human natures. The greatest battle within the church over this issue occurred when the Arians 3 attempted to define Jesus' divine nature in a manner that distinguished and separated it from the Father. Arians held that the Father is eternal but the Son is not. They taught that though the Son is the greatest of the all created beings, and Himself the Creator of the world, He is not "of the substance of God."
Providentially, the Arian party had a brilliant, dedicated opponent in Athanasius of Alexandria. He reasoned that if Jesus were not truly God, His death could not have the infinite value needed to atone for the sins of the world. 4 This argument eventually provided the basis for the victory of the orthodox position that Christ possessed two natures -- a divine nature and a human nature -- united in one person. He is God and man, not half-God and half-man. He is as much human as if He were not God; and He is just as much God as if He were not human.

pennycandy

Why is it acceptable for us to believe in some ethereal being who we can't see, who lives in some invisible realm, who can affect the entire globe with a single command, and who knows the thoughts and hearts of every human who ever existed, but can't grasp the idea of that being having three aspects of the one?

The trinity was always repulsive to me until I took off the org glasses and really looked at it objectively. The witnesses arguement against the alpha and omega not referring to both Jehovah and Jesus falls apart. As does the arguement that Jesus wasn't worshipped by his disciples(worship vs obeisance), turns out he was! And looking at the actual Greek word used when identifying God or Jesus throughout the New Testament shows that the NWT picks and chooses who it wants to apply the term LORD to.

As of right now, I'm leaning toward the belief that God is composed of the three, but I don't think it's that important. He knows our heart and our intentions and that we doing the best we can with the puzzle of the nature of God.

Doubtfully Yours

Jesus is a God. However, Jesus is not the Almighty God. Just my belief.

DY

stillajwexelder

Interesting - it is almost all bible based - looks like the AWAKE will be mainly bible before the official January 1st 2006

adelmaal

BigDog:

My whole take on the thing is that God created both the Holy Spirit and Jesus. Jesus was a spirit person who became a human and then was resurrected a spirit person. The Holy Spirit is God's active force a powerful being generated by God for various purposes.

It's simple for me. Both things came from God. They are no more or less God than we are. Our children come from us, our talents come from us, our creations (paintings, songs, poems, tangible things, etc.) come from us. They are a part of us; they are an expression of our being.

Why so many people need to argue about something so silly as to whether or not Jesus or the Holy Spirit are God himself is wierd to me. Common sense just tells me there is God, there is Jesus and there is the Holy Spirit. All three are important for different reasons and all should be important to us in our faith.

A Paduan

consider a clay pot

it may contain something - spirit
it has a form or shape that makes it what it is - soul
and what it is made from - clay (dust/flesh)

consider the person

demeanour, the way we are and interact - our spirit and the spirits of
who you are, and are made to be - your soul
and your physical body - your flesh

Each of these is person. We, like God, are trinity. When we are not as God it could be that we aren't trinity { broken vessels , dead in spirit; or we may not even be who we are to be, a second death (away from me I don't know who you are), and myths of this fear flood our society - body snatchers, zombies, stargate, the borg... }. Perhaps it is that we are a devil, ie. trinity in a different spirit.

Jesus is God in the flesh.

The wtbts strives to establish who to 'worship', but they are really trying to establish who to pay homage to (ie. pay) - worship is simply a natural thing.

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and 'entering the house' they found Jesus with his mother Mary, and fell down and worshipped him

Pleasuredome

Why is there no problem with accepting that the Holy Spirit is part of God, yet seems to be spoken of distinctly, seems to have its own emotions and personality yet if I remember from my dub upbringing is NOT and angel or other spirit creature, it is part of God, yet, sort of separate. I mean, if we can swallow that, then why is it so hard to possibly see Jesus in the same way?

from what i can remember jesus did claim that he was part of his father and his father part of him. so i guess that sums it all up: everything is ONE. im now a monitarian.

AWAKE - April 22nd

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