Posts by aqwsed12345

posted

66
"outside of time" argument
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
this is going to be very brief but a user recently tried to argue an argument that has already been refuted many times - the logic is somewhat sound but falls apart when the definition to the word used it looked and its usages in the bible.the word in question is "aionas" found in the scripture in question hebrews 1:2 .

(https://biblehub.com/hebrews/1-2.htm#lexicon)for starters look at the biblehub translations - do any of them state "outside of time" or that time was "created" in this moment - no because this seems to be heavily inspired by greek philosophy rather than the bible itself.note: i am not saying this word does not mean eternity or anything of the sort, i am saying this scripture some of the claims i dispute and can easily disprove, hence the argument is laughable.. bill mounce defines the word as:pr.

a period of time of significant character; life; an era; an age: hence, a state of things marking an age or era; the present order of nature; the natural condition of man, the world; ὁ αἰών, illimitable duration, eternity; as also, οἱ αἰῶνες, ὁ αἰῶν τῶν αἰώνων, οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων; by an aramaism οἱ αἰῶνες, the material universe, heb.
aqwsed12345

Blotty
You read all my sources pretty quickly, well, not really, you just reflexively pushed aside saying "misleading", it's easy so...
Well, the study of early Christian literature is important because the basic idea of the Watchtower is that they represent the "restoration" of the faith of early Christianity. Although you didn't answer where in the New Testament it was prophesied that heresy ("apostasy") could come to rule in the apostolic church ("congregation") at all, let alone that it would actually happen this way, and a 19th century schismatic Adventist movement will only restore the "true faith." And the alleged legitimacy of the Watchtower is based on the alleged parousia of 1914.
So, if you claim that the current belief of the Watchtower (Why exactly the current one? Maybe "new light" will be announced tomorrow...) is exactly the same as the belief of the early apostolic church, then it is perfectly appropriate to look at extrabiblical sources, whether they suggest this at all. Well, the answer is absolutely not.
Of course, you can push aside all the church fathers, that they were all "apostates", but then were your "non-apostate" church fathers? Or do you think that this wicked "apostate" church is such a perfect falsifier of history that it was able to completely disappear all traces of the alleged anciente Watchtowerite Christianity together with the "Jehovah" from all NT manuscripts? That just sounds like a silly conspiracy theory.
""John 1:14 "and the Word was made flesh", that's where the term "Incarnation" comes from" - a similar verb is used of a certain human.." Which other person is "made flesh"?
The examples cited for the Watchtower quote collection all show that they do not even respect their sources enough to at least cite the entire text with context. This will result in some of the author's more cautious wordings being presented as "scientific consensus", deceiving their readers: "You see, even they ADMITTED IT in their lexicon!!". This triumphalist talk is unfounded, and it is not scientific methodology.
"The point is even trinitarians themselves admit the NT is only the BASIS for the doctrine and it is not taught in scripture." - And that is more than enough. Check THIS about their quote from the Encyclopædia Britannica, which is just a secular encyclopedia, not "the Trinitarians". I note: perhaps the specific teachings of the Watchtower (Jesus = Michael, Jesus is a creature, 1914, two-class system, etc etc.) are explicitly stated in the Bible, or are they also "only the basis", which requires WDS interpreation? Double standard...
"Luke 24:39 - you convieniantly omit 1 Peter 3:18 and 1 Corinthians 15:45 from your list." - Or the latter two should be interpreted in the light of the first given verse (and John 2:19-22), and not the other way around. "Body" (soma) and "flesh" (sarx), "flesh and blood", "flesh and bone", these all represent different shades of meaning and cannot be played against each other. The 'sarx' is just the carnal, mortal, corruptible body. Jesus' resurrected body was a real body, but now with incorruptibility. That he became an (arch)angel is not claimed by any text.
""You continue to avoid the statement" - am I avoiding?" - Yes, you are. I keep asking you that, if Jesus ceased to be a man, and is now only an archangel, then who is now the mediator (in prayers, etc.) that, according to Paul, "the man Jesus Christ" is?
""Can a creature be honored in the same way ("just as") as God?" - the answer is yes (in some sense of the word)" - Nope, giving creation the same degree of respect, i.e. adoration, worship, as God, is the very definition of idolatry.
"the same word [proskuneó] is used in the LXX of God and humans.. thats how I would answer ""And how do you know that it is the other one?"" - The LXX is not an inspired work, but a translation (with numerous errors), which is a valuable source for textual criticism, but is of no importance in this case. Where in the New Testament is the verb 'proskuneo' used to legitimately honor people? It is found only in Acts 10:25, but as the next verse shows, Peter rejects it too. So yes, the burden of proof is on you that the verb 'proskuneo' means something different for the Son than for the Father. Check THIS too. Luke 4:8 quotes the Ten Commandments:
"Worship [proskuneo] the Lord your God and serve [latreuo] him only."
Therefore, both 'proskuneo' and 'latreuo' can be rendered only to the one true God (YHWH), and as we see, the degree of adoration described with both with the first (Hebrews 1:6) and the second verb (Revelation 22:3) is to be renderes to the Son too. Anyway, if you compare John 12:41 with Isaiah 6:1, it also proves that Jesus is Yahweh too.
"" According to this, there can be only one of all things that are mentioned in the Bible only in the singular? " - didnt know someone could distort my point so much they get this out of it." - I just reversed your logicel: if you think there is only one archangel, because where the New Testament says "archangel" it is in the singular, then by this logic there is only one thing of all that is only mentioned in the singular.
"Where is another Archangel meantioned in the bible?" - Where it's writing about the seven chief prince angels standing before God's throne. By the way, Satan was a cherub (Ezekiel 28:14, cf. Isaiah 14:12), and cherubs rank above archangels, that's why Michael did not "dare" to judge Satan.
""if you are looking for "active" participation, you will find it in Hebrews 1:10." - Hebrews 1:10 must be taken in light of the passive role" - Why "must" be? Or just the other way around: the latters should be interpreted in the light of the fuller statement.
""he creates by himself, without any kind of "passive" participation" - the scriptures above would disagree" - They wouldn't, just your interpretation of them. If we start from the fact that the Son is also Yahweh God, then the statements about Jesus' participation in the creation do not violate the specific statements that God creates "alone", "by himself", "with his own hands", nor logic.
"The Father alone created through the agent (Jesus)" - If the Father created by actually doing it through an "agent", who is not one God with him, then he did not create "alone". If I build my house through an "agent", then I did not build my house "alone". And the Scripture itself uses the analogy of building a house for creation: Hebrews 3:4.
Genesis 1:26 - God does not speak to the angels, but it is either a plural of majesty (as 'Elohim' is also plural), or to the Son, who is not "of the angels". Augustine vigorously opposed Philo's explanation that at the beginning of Scripture (Gen 1:20-26) God would have called on the angels to be his helpers in creation (August. Gen. ad litt. IX 15, 26 - 28 Civ. Dei XII 24; Trin. III 8, 13; cf. already Iren. I 22, 1; II 2, 4; IV 20, 1). Even the WTS didn't claim this either. Nowhere do we find angels involved in any type of creation. According to the Bible, angels are created beings, not co-creators with God. The psalmist wrote:
"Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts . . . Let them praise the Lord for He commanded and they were created" (Psalm 148:2,5).
Genesis 1:26 has a possible Trinitarian interpretation, since the one to whom he first spoke (the Son) is God as well as the Father - since it is written that in the image of God, and the expression "in our image" extends the deity to the addressed. The Bible specifically states that only YHWH God created, thereby excluding all things other than YHWH from participating in creation. Thus, if the Son is said to be the creator, then we must place him within God, not outside. If the mason was helped by an assistant to build, then it can no longer be said of the mason that he alone built the house. And that's exactly what we're talking about here. Only God created, yet there are several persons, so these persons must be placed within the one God, otherwise it would be a self-contradiction.
"he is not just a "creature" - while he is part of creation he holds a very speical position far from any mere "creature"" - Even if you maintain that he is a creature in a "special position", he is still a creature, however Scripture does not state this. Still: for the origin of the Son from the Father, it consistently uses the terms begotten/born.
"John 2:19 - Even A.T Robertson would disagree, which of the church fathers said this? since they are infallible according to you" - The text itself says that 1) Jesus also actively participates in his own resurrection, 2) it is about the resurrection of his BODY, not his "recreation as an archangel". Individual church fathers are indeed not infallible, but collectively, as witnesses of the early Christian faith, they prove the faith of the early church. You can see what they said about this verse HERE.
""it has not yet become a proven fact that this so-called "philosophy" is wrong." - if it contradicts the bible it is, but hey how about i just leave a citation for you to read" - That "the philosophy" generally contradicts the Bible, the Bible does not say so. If it contradicts the revelation in terms of a proposition or train of thought, it must of course be rejected, but such a general shift does not follow from nowhere. The apostles themselves used a series of terms and concepts that had obvious parallels with Greek philosophy.
Regarding the Durant quote, the WTS fails to mention that historians Will Durant made similar dismissive statements about things that the Society believes in. For example, according to pages 594-595 of Durant's book (Caesar and Christ), "The Apocalypse is Jewish poetry, the fourth gospel is Greek philosophy... John joined the Greek philosophers." The Society's quote from him: "The idea of the divine trinity originated in Egypt" is incomplete, Durant also includes the Last Judgement among Egyptian ideas, and a little lower he declares: "Millennialism originated in Persia" (i.e., the hope of the Millennial Kingdom, a teaching of fundamental importance for Jehovah's Witnesses). Check HERE the full quote of Durant.
And philosophy should not be "destroyed" anyway, but dealt with as 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says: "examine everything; hold firmly to that which is good".
"cite me an instance, where firstborn followed by a genitive (or in general) where the subject is not part of the category it is firstborn of?" - Why should I? If the title "Firstborn" refers to his pre-eminence, supremacy, then the natural reading is that he is the Lord, the ruler of all creation. This reading is supported by the context and the continuation: THEREFORE he is the "Firstborn" (the ruler) of creation, BECAUSE all things were created in him. Check THIS too. Another source:
Trinitarian Exegesis and Theology: Prov 8.22 according to the Cappadocian Fathers

""which are about the creation of created things." - John 1 doesnt talk about the creation of the heavens and earth, only earth." - Where did you read this? In John 1, he does not limit "the beginning" to the earth at all, he refers back to Genesis 1:1, according to which God created heaven and earth together. When he says "all things that has been made" in verse 3, he includes all created things, including the angels.
"I notice the angels being present is also omitted, not to mention the holy spirit" - Angels were not "present" at creation of the world, since they were also created "in the beginning", and especially they did not participate in the creation at all. Job does not contradict, since 38:4–7 can be interpreted for the second story of creation (Genesis 2. chapter), which is mainly about man and man's relation to the world and society. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, was present at creation, see Genesis 1:2 (cf. Job 33:4, Psalm104:30), which the NWT also mistranslates.
"John 17:3 - Jesus talks about "before the world was" not before "time" or anything else you want to come up with." - Besides, I'm assuming you didn't mean verse 3, but verse 5: "before the world began." On the one hand, the (created) "world" includes the time. According to them, Jesus does not include himself in the created world. He was before the "world" began.
""not "all other things" - as the WTS brazenly falsifies" - So he made God? thats what 'all' implies, Paul even marks God as a "thing"" - No, since it is not about everything in general, but about everything that has become, that is, about all creatures. And he did not include Jesus among them, just like John 1:3.
"" how do we know that it actually means exactly that here?" - Rev 3:14, Where John follows the model of Micah 5:2 with: Arkhon = ruler, arkhe = begining" - According to Colossians 1:18 and Revelation 1:11, "the beginning" (arkhe) is Jesus himself, it's one of his titles. So the "beginning of creation" does not mean that he is the first created being, but that he is the principle of creation, the source from which creation flows out. Interestingly, even the Arians of the 4th century did not refer to Revelation 3:14. The Father is also called the "arkhe" in Revelation 21:6.
The Son was born before the beginning of time, that is, He was "in the beginning" (Jn 1:1), not that He became at the beginning. He was there when time did not exist (which is a created thing), so it cannot be said that "there was a time when the Son did not exist."
Birth and creation are indeed two separate acts. But that's the point: the Son was not "sometime" born from the Father, but before the beginning of time, that is, when there was no time yet, so we cannot speak of a "time" when the Father was "alone", since the Son was already born from Him when there was no time. This is expressed by the beginning of Jn 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word..." Even if we theoretically assume that the Son is not through birth, but through creation, there would not have been a time when the Father existed alone (was there no Father until then? God does not change!), since time itself is a created entity, and there is no passage of time in God. In layman's terms: the Son was there when the clock had not yet started ticking. Because - once again - how does the Gospel of John begin?
“In the beginning was the Word…”
So He did not become, but was there at the beginning.
The “beginning”: when there was no matter, hence no world, no space and time, but from God's eternal will, His "let there be" word, the world came into being… In this beginning, the Word, the Logos, the divine nature of Jesus Christ, was already present.
So, the Word was there before the creation and time. He did not become, was not created in time, God did not create Him: He has been there from the beginning.
The creation of time only happened “after” the “beginning” (before time was created, we can't talk about before and after), as symbolically described in the Book of Genesis:
"God saw that the light was good. God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning: the first day."
The logic that because the Son was born of the Father, you think it follows that the Son must be “later” in time, is quite flawed, because the words begetting and birth should not be taken in the everyday sense.
The Son is born of the Father by generation, but generation should not be understood in the everyday sense. The Son is derived from the Father through pure spiritual generation, through the unlimited sharing of His essence. So, the birth of the Son is an intellectual activity of God.
Birth should be taken in a narrower sense. Its broader sense is that what did not exist comes into being, but the narrower sense is that a living being comes from a living being, and the two are of the same nature.
The Son had no beginning in time, for he was there before the beginning of time. We can talk about logical succession, but this is not temporal succession.
Let's assume that the Son is not through birth, but through creation, so He was not, but became, specifically the first thing that came out of the Father, by way of creation. So this is the first creation. If this is the first, then “after” this (logically, not in time, since there is no time yet!) God creates heaven and earth, “after” this (still only logically, there is still no time), then time ("He separated the day from the night" - symbolic description!), etc.
So, the clock started ticking from the time God created time. In this case too, it would be true that we cannot say that there was a time when the Son did not exist. (After all, the definition of eternity is that there was a time when it was not yet) Because time, as such, was created "later" than the Son. So the Son was there even when there was no time. However, this leads to circular reasoning:
So if the Bible phrases it that the Word was in the beginning (not that he became in the beginning), it logically follows that it is Eternal.
The Arians took the (personal) originlessness as a divine basic attribute, and they applied it only to the Father. It followed that the Son and the Holy Spirit, as their origin is in the Father, cannot be equal to Him, but are only creatures. They did not think that originlessness, self-existence, applies to the divine essence itself, and all three persons possess this equally, and one with it. The difference is only in the relations of the persons. The Son is born of the Father in such a way that the Father communicates His entire essence to Him, not in time, not in succession, but in His eternal existence.
This shows that the Watchtower Society has no idea what it is denying. Trinitarians do not claim that the term "only-begotten" in itself implies timelessness, but rather that he was not created, but came into existence through spiritual generation, and in his kind, he is completely unique, differing from every (not every other) creature, and not only in the sense that he was created directly or through an intermediary.
The concept of spiritual generation is indeed emphasized in the doctrine of the Trinity: just read the Nicene or Athanasian creed, it explicitly states that the Son was begotten/not created by the Father.
The Bible calls angels "sons of God" (Hebrew b'ne Elohim) (Job 38:7, Ps 36:9) and collectively refers to the Jews as God's "son" as a whole people (Hos 11:1). However, no Jew could call God his own father personally, as if he himself originated from God, because this would have made him a God too (see Jn 10:33).
Jesus referred to himself using two unique expressions: he is the "Son of God" and the "Son of Man". The "... son" construction, like in other languages, usually expresses kinship in Hebrew (e.g., son of Jonah, Simon), but it is also a unique Hebrew grammatical phenomenon that does not express kinship but characterizes, for example, "sons of disobedience" (Eph 2:2) are those who are disobedient, as the "son of death" is dead.
Therefore, when Jesus claimed to be the "Son of Man" (Mt 16:13), it first of all means: "who is a Man". Secondly, this expression is a figure of an Old Testament apocalyptic vision who "sits at the right hand of the Mighty" and who will return to Earth to be the king of the nations (Dan 7:13-14 cf. Mt 26:63-66, 25:31). Judging from the reactions, Jesus' contemporaries understood exactly what power Jesus claimed for himself with the title Son of Man.
On the other hand, Jesus also claimed to be the "Son of God", which means: "who is God". Considering his relationship with the Father, he is the only Son of God (Jn 3:16; "only begotten" = only one), so he is the Son (1Jn 1:3, 2:22-24, 3:17, 4:9,14, 5:12 etc.), who has God as his own Father personally (Mt 11:27, Lk 10:22, Jn 10:32-38), who is taught and acts by the Father (Jn 14:10-11). As he said: "all that the Father has is mine" (Jn 16:15), since "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30). The Jews understood Jesus' statements about himself as "making himself God, being a man" (Jn 10:33), because his words could not be understood in any other way with an Old Testament and Hebrew ear.
It should be noted that according to the New Testament, believers are also "sons of God" (Gal 3:27), but while The Son is inherently, eternally, by nature God, believers only partake of his divine nature - in character, immortality, glory - by the grace of God (2Pt 1:4, 2Cor 3:18, 1Jn 3:2, 1Cor 15:53-54).
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"How Long Would Jesus' Reign Be?"
by BoogerMan in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
simple enough question for a jw to answer, because the org has told them for over 100 years that, .

a) jesus would reign for 1000 years, and.

b) that his reign began in 1914 when he became king.
aqwsed12345

The interpretation of the Book of Revelation by the Watchtower Society is typically millenarian heresy. The subject of Chapter 20 is the "millennial" reign of the saints with Christ, and the final assault of Satan and his allies against God. But how should this be interpreted? Let's see the Catholic interpretation.
Revelation 20:1-6 is its most difficult part of this book. The single correct and now almost universally accepted interpretation among Catholic exegetes sees the millennial reign of Christ and His saints as the entire earthly life of the Church, which essentially means the same as the "forty-two months", "one thousand two hundred and sixty days", and "three and a half years" mentioned in other visions (11:2; 12:6.14). The power of Satan suffered a mortal wound when he was cast down from heaven and even more so by the redeeming death of Jesus Christ, which "bound" the devil in a certain sense, although his power was not completely annihilated on earth. At the end of the world, Satan will regain his power for a short time (11:9. 11: "three and a half days") and will launch a final attack on the Church of Christ with all his strength. This struggle will end with the definitive fall of the devil.
Thus the Millenarianism is an eschatological heresy about Christ's thousand-year reign, which he will establish on Earth before the end of the world with those whom he has already resurrected to eternal life. The belief harks back to a scene from Revelation (20:1-6). After Jesus has defeated the two beasts symbolizing the power of evil and their followers, an angel chains up the devil and throws him into the abyss for a thousand years, so that he cannot harm the righteous. The souls of the martyrs emerge and rule with Christ as priests of God and Christ. This is the "first resurrection", and he who partakes in it, the "second death" does not harm. The rest of the dead do not rise yet. After a "thousand years", Satan is set free, and he provokes nations to wage war against Christ again, but God permanently deprives him of his power (20:7-10). This is followed by the so-called resurrection and the judgment of the world (20:11-15). Interpreting the referenced scripture is not easy, but interpreters agree that the numbers have symbolic meanings. The relatively short persecution ("three and a half years") is followed by the Church's long period of peace ("thousand years").
We should rather think of an eschatological interpretation, that is, a heavenly event that impacts the earthly life of the Church. The scripture's teachings on the afterlife salvation must be the basis for our interpretation. The text does not intend to symbolize events happening in temporal succession, but a symbolic logical order, that is, that persecution and suffering on Earth are followed by salvation, and that within the Church, the hope and grace of final salvation coincide with earthly trials.
In the first centuries of the Church, especially some heretics, but also some Christians believed that Chapter 20, verses 1-6 should be taken literally, meaning a thousand-year earthly reign of Christ and His saints (chiliasm, "chilios" = a thousand in Greek). The first determined representatives of millenarianism were Cerinthus and Papias. According to Eusebius, Cerinthus professed that after the resurrection, the righteous will live on earth in the "New Jerusalem", and their bodies will serve desires and pleasures. Papias referred to an alleged revelation of Jesus, according to which the paradise abundance will be realized in the thousand-year earthly kingdom, including physical activity, which he adopted from the rabbis' view. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus only affirm its spiritual bliss. Early Creeds do not mention millenarianism, and the Gnostics did not accept it either. In the early 3rd century, Origen declared millenarianism an infiltration of Jewish tradition. He interpreted the referred part of the Book of Revelation allegorically. There were some who engaged in temporal speculation even regarding its beginning. In Africa, Tertullian deemed it worthy of God's justice that after the resurrection, the righteous first receive their reward here on earth, where they suffered. Millenarian writings are still known from the 4th century (Apollinarius of Laodicea), but they mainly understood the "thousand-year" kingdom in a spiritual sense. Eusebius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Epiphanius, and Theodoret outright rejected it. In the early 7th century, Andreas of Caesarea counted the thousand years from the Incarnation to the appearance of the Antichrist, thus for the first time, he interpreted millenarianism historically within the Church. Augustine understood the first resurrection as a spiritual effect of faith and baptism, the thousand years as the remaining part of the 6th world day or era, or as the remaining entire time.
In the Middle Ages, and even in our times, some interpreters have revived this interpretation, or have attributed this interpretation to the author of the Book of Revelation. However, this explanation fails to notice that John is speaking of a purely spiritual kingdom; it completely misinterprets the basic ideas of the Book of Revelation and leads to impossibilities. The idea of moderate millenarianism also reappears in some medieval theologians. Thomas Aquinas rejected the historical interpretation. Joachim da Fiore interpreted the thousand-year kingdom as the reign of the Holy Spirit, and accordingly, he interpreted the gospel in a prophetic-pneumatological sense. He felt that the true realization of the gospel is still to come. Some writer communities adopted his teachings. In modern times, only certain sects revived the expectation (Anabaptists, Moravian Brethren, Adventists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses), but Lessing, Hegel, Kant, and the Romantics also dealt with it. Post-Trent theologians unanimously rejected the dual resurrection, and the official Church position also became that even moderate millenarianism cannot be taught without endangering faith (Denzinger 2296).
When Roman paganism is destroyed, Satan's power is taken away for an indefinite period of time so that he can no longer deceive the nations as he did in the time of Roman paganism. But as soon as this long period of time passes, he regains his former power, but only for a short time. "When Roman paganism is destroyed;" because this current vision directly connects to the previous one, which is about the destruction of Roman paganism. However, opinions vary as to the time of the destruction. Some theologians understand AD 313, in which the rule of idolatry was broken as a result of the conversion of Constantine; others place the fall of paganism even earlier. Since paganism did not end suddenly, this point in time cannot be strictly defined. After this point in time, "the power is taken from Satan, so that he may no longer deceive the nations as before;" for "binding, locking up, sealing" in no way implies a complete limitation of Satan's seductive power, just as "release" does not mean its unlimited power. These expressions therefore refer only to the power that Satan exercised over paganism, and metaphorically mean that his power was only taken away to the extent that he exercised it with regard to Roman paganism. This interpretation is also confirmed by history. After paganism fell, Christianity as a whole was not persecuted at any time, no ruler ever sought to exterminate it anymore, where it took strong root, idolatry was not brought back anymore, and the abominations that came with it did not return anymore. However, Satan was not entirely powerless. Here and there Christianity and Christians themselves suffered maltreatment and persecution, were distorted by heresies, their peace was disturbed by wars, and a more subtle form of idolatry replaced the worship of images.
The restriction of Satan's power lasts for an indefinite period of time. The text indeed says a thousand years; but that this is just a round number is already clear from the fact that the last time, which follows the thousand years, is known to no one (Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32, Acts 1:7). According to Augustine and the best interpreters, under that time is meant the time that flows from the fall of paganism to the final period. In the last era, Satan's former power will be restored for a short time. This will be the subject of verse 7.
This thousand-year co-reign has been the source of much controversy. Those who took it literally fell into heresy. The thousand years may originate from a Jewish idea: according to the seven-day creation, the world would last 7000 years, of which the last thousand years would apply to Christ's thousand-year rule, while the following eighth thousand years would mean eternity. Augustine and Jerome count the thousand years from the incarnation of Jesus. In the writings of the rabbis, one can find the concept of the world's 7000-year future. The first 6000 years are the unfolding of history, the last thousand correspond to a peaceful rule with the Messiah like the Sabbath. But this schema does not appear in Revelation. Especially because the ancient Creeds only speak of the general resurrection, and it is clear that the fate of the disciple on earth is similar to that of the Master, and the reward awaits us only in the afterlife (Lk 9:23; Mt 10:24; Rom 8:17). We can understand the allusion of Revelation to mean that the thousand-year kingdom represents the full kingdom of Christ, which began on earth and reaches its fullness in the afterlife (1 Cor 15:24-28).
v2-3. The abyss (bottomless pit) is the hell (3. verse; see also 9:1; the "key" represents the angel's power over hell, and the great chain (symbol) serves to bind Satan, or to unlock the power to open hell. The prophet refers to Satan as the ancient serpent, based on Genesis 3:1. The "binding" symbolizes the limitation of Satan's power; the thousand years represent the entire earthly life of the Church. An angel descended from heaven to bind Satan. Many interpreters recognize Michael the Archangel in this angel. The binding is for a "thousand years", and during this time, the faithful of Christ reign with Him.
v4. The sealing serves to confirm the (relative) binding of the evil spirit. After the Savior's crucifixion, the evil spirit - in the words of Augustine - is like a chained rabid dog, which can only bite those who recklessly or carelessly approach it. Throughout the earthly life of the Church, Satan can tempt people, but he can force no one into sin. "For a little while", in proportion to the long earthly life of the Church. After Satan was "chained", paganism fell, and the rule of Christianity began. The glorified saints, especially the holy martyrs, ruled and judged with Christ during those thousand years. Those seated on thrones generally represent the blessed Christians; for every true Christian was promised to rule with Christ (1 Thessalonians 2:12). The holy martyrs are particularly mentioned, for they sacrificed their lives for Christ. The rule and judgement take place in heaven; as it is exercised by spirits, not by the resurrected bodies of the righteous. Sharing in Christ's rule signifies participation in His reign. As Christ governs, guides and protects His Church, so the saints partake in this governance, and if we seek their advocacy for our salvation, their intercession for us can be powerful, since they rule with Christ. The rule of the spirits lasts until the final era, when after the victory over the last struggles of paganism, the resurrection of the body and communal life occur, the judgement will then be held not just by spirits, but by those spirits who are endowed with a glorified body. (See Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:30, 1 Corinthians 6:3.) Those seated on the judgement seats are the followers of the Lord Jesus, the already glorified martyrs (whose spirits the prophet sees) and other righteous people (who did not worship the beast, etc.), whether still living on earth or already enjoying the bliss of heaven. The sanctifying grace makes the righteous people on earth God's adopted children, heirs of heaven, and thus in a certain sense co-regents with Jesus Christ.
v5. The "first resurrection" symbolizes the spiritual resurrection through baptism (or repentance) into the life of sanctifying grace; the other dead are those who died without the sanctifying grace. The other dead, the deceased godless, who sided with the beast, do not live during those thousand years, they do not live and do not rule with Christ in heaven spiritually, but as their bodies, so their spirits too have died, they were taken from Jesus's face, excluded from heaven, condemned to damnation. These words "they do not live, they do not resurrect" are opposed to the previous verse's word "they live". As this signifies the blessed spiritual life of the righteous, so that they do not live proves the miserable spiritual death of the wicked. It should be noted: this expression "they do not resurrect, until etc." does not mean that these dead begin to live spiritually after the expiration of these thousand years, but as the phrase "until" in scripture does not continue the action beyond the specified point but expresses denial (see Matthew 1:25), here too the blessed spiritual life is denied from these dead.
v6. The prophet's inspired exclamation. The "second death" is the eternal damnation (14. verse). All true Christians, in a broader sense, are priests of God and Christ, because their life is a constant fragrant sacrifice before God. (See also 1,6; 5,10; 7,13; 1 Peter 2:9.) Blessed and holy can be said of one whose spirit, after the death of the body, reaches Christ in heaven, to live there, rule and judge with Him. Those spirits get there who truly live in God's grace in this life and die in this grace; that is why the Lord calls this life of grace on earth a resurrection (John 5:25), just as Paul the Apostle does (Ephesians 5:14). The "first death" is the death of the body, the "second death" is the spiritual death, the eternal damnation (21:8). Whoever lives with Christ, has begun to live in Him here, and ends this life lived in Him in this world, such a person may die bodily with the "first death", but does not die the spiritual death, the death of eternal damnation, but etc. in heaven, as if they were priests, serving God, they share in Christ's rule spiritually until the very end, when they will then resurrect bodily, and will continue to live and rule in perfect glory forever.
Satan lost his power with Jesus' redemption, and through grace Christians truly became "kings and priests". John also talks about the "first" and the "second death", as well as the "first" and "second resurrection". John understood the other death as eternal damnation, so the "first resurrection" should be understood as a spiritual resurrection, when someone leaves their sins and lives a life of grace. Thus, the members of Christ's thousand-year kingdom are Christians who live in a state of grace, that is, they have risen from sin through baptism. The thousand years therefore lasts from the birth of Christ until His second coming.
v7-9. The final attack of the devil and his allies against the Church, and their ultimate downfall. At the end of the world, Satan will attack the Church with full power, but only for a short time, "three and a half days" (cf.: Rev 11:9). The brevity of the description of the great battle is shockingly powerful. The battle of the devil and his allies essentially coincides with the continuous attacks of the Antichrist (the two beasts) against the Kingdom of God (19:11-21); but the prophet separately describes the downfall and punishment of the main enemies of the Kingdom of God (in the sense of the pagan Roman Empire, - the Antichrist struggling in the two beasts - the evil spirit).
When the thousand years are over: in the last period of the earthly life of the Church. The release of Satan means that the evil spirit (with God's permission) will embark on an even more intense final attack against the Church. The four corners of the earth represent all directions of the world. Gog and Magog are the final great enemies of God's kingdom in Ezekiel 38 and 39. According to Genesis 10:2, Magog was a people descended from Japheth, who lived in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea; Gog was also a people, or the king of Magog. Gog was otherwise the king of Lydia. Here, Gog and Magog represent all enemies of the Church, symbolize all anti-Church powers and cruelties.
When the last age comes according to God's decree, God will allow Satan to gain a vast multitude among the nations, in order to overcome Christianity and gain victory for himself. For the thousand years and the release, see verse 3. The peoples at the four corners of the earth, not just those living at the extreme limits of the earth, but all peoples under the sky, as indicated by the four corners. Among all peoples, even among Christians, Satan will find a vast number of followers; because Christ himself says that at that time, when he comes again, moral decay will be almost universal (Luke 17:26-28), and he will hardly find faith (Luke 18:8). Gog and Magog were northern peoples, where the Greeks' Scythia was, the wildest barbarians (Ezekiel 38). They are not so called here as if they would be those who will oppress the Church in the last times, but only serve as symbolic names for groups persecuting Christianity. They gather for battle against the Church, cooperate to exterminate Christianity from the earth. According to apostolic teaching, the Antichrist will appear in the last times (2 Thessalonians 2), this will be their leader, or he will cooperate with them.
The beloved city is Jerusalem, as a prefiguration of the Church. The prophet describes God's punitive judgment, along with several Old Testament prophets, as a great battle.
v10. This vers again teaches the eternity of the punishments of hell. The outcome of the great battle: Satan is finally cast into hell with his followers. This battle coincides with the struggle described in 19:17-21, but while there the prophet mainly focused on the punishment of the two beasts, here he mainly outlines the final fate of Satan. The "lake of fire and sulfur" is the hell. The "camp of the saints", which is besieged by enemies of Christianity, is the Church on earth. What this battle will be like, whether it's purely spiritual or an actual battle; whether the beloved city is a real city, where the small army of believers will be gathered, or whether it only refers to the Church; what the fire signifies, whether it will be actual fire or just a metaphor... we must leave the interpretation of all these to the future; because the prophecy will only be fully understandable when the future event it discusses has occurred. The duty of a Christian is to be vigilant, to pay close attention to the signs of the times, and to always be ready for the coming of the Lord (see Matthew 24). However, it is certain with regard to this last age that before the Last Judgement, the Jewish people will enter the Church (Romans 11). Here follows the concluding scene that completes the book and the vision, i.e., the transition of the Church, its dissolution into heaven.
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"outside of time" argument
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
this is going to be very brief but a user recently tried to argue an argument that has already been refuted many times - the logic is somewhat sound but falls apart when the definition to the word used it looked and its usages in the bible.the word in question is "aionas" found in the scripture in question hebrews 1:2 .

(https://biblehub.com/hebrews/1-2.htm#lexicon)for starters look at the biblehub translations - do any of them state "outside of time" or that time was "created" in this moment - no because this seems to be heavily inspired by greek philosophy rather than the bible itself.note: i am not saying this word does not mean eternity or anything of the sort, i am saying this scripture some of the claims i dispute and can easily disprove, hence the argument is laughable.. bill mounce defines the word as:pr.

a period of time of significant character; life; an era; an age: hence, a state of things marking an age or era; the present order of nature; the natural condition of man, the world; ὁ αἰών, illimitable duration, eternity; as also, οἱ αἰῶνες, ὁ αἰῶν τῶν αἰώνων, οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων; by an aramaism οἱ αἰῶνες, the material universe, heb.
aqwsed12345
Blotty
Regarding the foundation of the Church and the alleged "great apostasy", I recommend my comments in THIS topic. The main point is that nowhere in the Bible does it mention the true New Testament Church - even temporarily - ceasing to exist, let alone it being a possibility, and especially not about it being replaced by another (nearly two thousand years later). The New Testament constantly talks about ONE church, the one whose foundations were laid by the apostles, and it claims that this Church will never cease, but will remain forever, in an unmistakable and visible form. If even the prophecy of Babylonian captivity was revealed, why did God not say a single word about the nearly two thousand year gap in Christianity? The Scripture clearly teaches that the construction of the Church was the task of the apostles (not Russell and the so-called 19th-century 'Bible students'):
"The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:11-12)
Secondly, this would be practically a third covenant after the Old and New Testaments, which is excluded, as the New Testament is the final and eternal one.
"I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me." (Jer 32:40)
"Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant" (Heb 13:20)
Therefore, God does not turn away from his Church of the new and eternal covenant, so the claim of Donatism that the legitimacy of the Church could be lost due to "unworthiness" is not true.
Regarding the WTS's 'Should You Believe in the Trinity?' pamphlet, you can read THIS comment of mine, but many others also wrote about how unfairly they have quoted in this publication, there are many sources on the Internet about this, for example, I can recommend THIS, THIS, THIS, and THIS.
You can't get around the dung beetle method of collecting quotes by paraphrasing this time, because the point here is that you don't take the trouble to immerse yourself in the entirety of early Christian literature, or modern scholars' theological corpus. This method does not want to research or understand, but only looks for one showable quote that can be taken out like a candy from a box.
Regarding Furuli, you can also find on Wikipedia that:
"In 2020, Furuli published a book entitled My Beloved Religion—and the Governing Body in which he maintains that the denomination's core doctrines and interpretations of biblical chronology are correct, but challenges the authority of the Jehovah's Witnesses' leadership. Subsequently, on June 17, 2020 he was disfellowshipped from the denomination."
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You can find a few sources about the New World Translation HERE and HERE, among others.
The New World Translation, beyond its unique Watchtower vocabulary, is a theologically completely biased translation. When the inspired text contradicts their teachings, the Society distorts the text, ignoring grammar and usage (e.g., the statements about the personhood of Jesus as God and the Spirit, the common hope of believers, and conscious existence after death). Despite the promise in the Preface, many insertions are not put in brackets, so the unsuspecting reader cannot know what is God's word and what is the Society's. The Society has never been able to substantively respond to legitimate international professional criticism. That's why even religious communities with similar beliefs do not use it.
The Watchtower Society issued this with the aim of providing Jehovah's Witnesses and those interested in talking to them with a "Bible" that supports their own theology. Its most characteristic feature is that it reformulates the biblical image known about the person of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in certain sections, thus altering the original message. Its usage completely reflects the 'jargon' of the Witnesses: instead of 'grace' it has 'undeserved kindness', 'accurate knowledge of God' instead of knowing God, 'witnessing and preaching work' instead of proclaiming the gospel or testifying, and 'torture stake' instead of cross, etc.
They want to justify the critical details of the NWT with obscure, flawed translations by individuals, well-known "blunders" of well-known translations, selective quotations from professionally accepted Greek textbooks, a deceptive series of "examples" that prove nothing, and works by liberal authors who do not consider the Bible to be God's reliable word. The large number and extensive "evidence" of course looks very convincing to the non-professional, and the Society remains silent about the fact that the authors of the referenced language books have already voiced their protest in open letters not to distort the Bible by citing their works. Of the translators, two had something to do with the Greek language: one of them (Gangas) was of Greek origin (Modern Greek!), the other (Fred Franz) studied Ancient Greek for about 2 years.
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"Whatever the date whether 1914, or however many years back - is besides the point anyhow." - In fact, the date 1914 is very important for the Watchtower, since they base their organization's legitimacy on the fact that Jesus' "invisible presence" began at that time, and then he "appointed" the "faithful and discreet slave" class. In this regard, I recommend that you read THIS study. It should also be noted, that Jesus' parousia, which according to the Bible "every eye will see" (Revelation 1:7), but is explained by the Watchtower as "some will understand it spiritually", but in reality they did not even grasp it in 1914. In fact, the Watchtower's teaching until 1930 was that Jesus' "invisible parousia" occurred in 1874, so in 1914, even the leaders of the Watchtower did not "understand it spiritually" that Jesus had "come invisibly" in the meantime. So, Jesus' parousia, which according to Scripture "every eye will see", was not actually "seen" even by the leaders of the so-called true religion for 16 years.
The latter is also funny because according to their publication Revelation—Its Grand Climax At Hand!, the "seven trumpets" read in the book of Revelation supposedly represent seven Watchtower congresses held in the 1920s (which nobody remembers), where Rutherford continually mentioned dates (1799, 1874, 1878) that have long been invalidated. So, the "seven trumpets" of the book of Revelation actually just represent a speech heard by a handful of people that even the later representatives of the same religion consider to be false statements.
I can't imagine how anyone intelligent, serious, and even a casual reader of the news could seriously believe the publication Revelation—Its Grand Climax At Hand!. It presents events as world-shaking events that can't even be considered significant from the perspective of their own denomination. A congress held in the 1920s with a few thousand participants is the trumpets found in the 8th chapter of the book of Revelation? Because they rebuked the "false Christianity" which supposedly "exposed" it? The historical Christianity was obviously not, for example, the communist persecution of the church, but Rutherford's "fiery words" that caused the great disaster, well, this can really only make you laugh.
At least they should have marked a congress that is still significant from the perspective of their own denomination, e.g. in 1935, when they announced the doctrine of two-class salvation.
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""Well, if Jesus is no longer a man, and the 'man Jesus' is our mediator, then what?" - considering he was raised as a spirit, but Greg Stafford can deal with you" - You continue to avoid the statement that - as the Watchtower also believes - Jesus is our (or at least of the "anointed class") mediator (in terms of the covenant and even our prayers), then who is our mediator, if Jesus ceased to be human, and the apostle Paul specifically calls "the man Jesus Christ" the mediator. The Watchtower completely misinterprets the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians in this regard, I wrote about it HERE. John 2:19-22 clearly means the resurrection of Jesus' body to life, not his re-creation as a spirit. And if he rose with his body, he also ascended with it. And this does not merely proves that His real body will be resurrected, but also that also He will do it as well. How else could he say a parable about rebuilding (which cannot be a pasive role) the temple himself?
“Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39).
(repeat this sentence, until it gets into your mind)
"Flesh and blood" is a way of expressing, not the ascension of the body in general, but the perishable, mortal, corruptible one, we all have before the glorified resurrection. The idea that the body generally could not enter heaven is clearly contradicted by: Gen 5:24; 2Kings 2:1-13; 2Cor 12:2-4; 1Thess 4:17; Heb 11:5; Rev 11:11-12.
Also read THIS and THIS. Christ indeed died with respect to His natural, corruptible bodily life, but His soul could not be killed; His spiritual life continued unabated, and was even exalted, glorified, as His human soul transitioned into that perfect, glorified state in which, subsequently, His body also partook at His resurrection. Christ died for us, but was made alive in the spirit, that is, His soul - which remained united with divinity - was again united with His body. He grants this grace and glory also to the believers. Christ was killed in the body for our sins, but even in suffering His soul was made alive, that is, it enjoyed the blissful vision of God due to His personal union with divinity. At the moment of death, Christ's soul descended to the souls in prison, that is, to Abraham's bosom, also called the "paradise" (limbo of the patriarchs), where the souls of those who did not believe in Noah's exhortations for repentance while the ark was being built, but turned to God in their impending disaster. To all these, He preached the redemption which was concluded with His death.
I still can't find in the Bible your (or more precisely the WTS') claims:
- "Jesus was "created", and used to be angel before his Incarnation", on the contrary: He was born/begotten before the creation of the aions, and in the beginning he already was
- "The incarnation was "transferring" (???) into human, by dropping his previous nature." On the contrary: John 1:14 "and the Word was made flesh", that's where the term "Incarnation" comes from
- "With his death Jesus "ceased to exist."" According to the Apostolic Creed of the 1st century He "descended into the underworld" (hades), within that to Abraham's bosom. Cf. Matthew 12:40, Acts 2:24, Acts 2:31, Eph 4:9, Col 1:18, 1 Peter 3:18-19, 1Peter 4:6.
- "He was resurrected in fleshly form [only] by his Father" - on the contrary: John 2:19 Jesus predicts that He will raise Himself from the dead (see also John 10:18), together with the Father of course, and the Spirit. 1Peter 3:18 says that the Spirit raised Jesus from the dead (see also Romans 1:4, and note that Romans 8:11 clearly says that God will resurrect believers “through His Spirit”). An not merely "in fleshly form", but really resurrecting his body.
- "He "surrendered" his humanity, and "dropped" his body, and became only a spirit, an angel again." Again: “Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). JW position is somewhat resembles to gnostic docetism, at least after the resurrection.
The angels don’t have “spiritual body’, nor a body in any sense. They are pure spirits. The way you want to understand the term "spiritual body" is utterly impossible. Something is either spirit or body. The body is a thing with physical extension, the spirit is not. It's a logical contradiction, like saying "invisible pink" or "fragrant green."
So what does the expression "spiritual body" mean in the Pauline epistles? The body of the resurrected is a real physical body, yet it differs from the old one: It will no longer be subject to decay, illness, death. It carries the lightness, strength, harmony of the spirit. It will reflect the spirituality of the soul and the beauty of grace.
Therefore, the "spiritual body" in relation to the resurrected saved ones does not mean that it would turn into a spirit (that is, essentially immaterial, bodiless), but because it will be completely subordinated to the soul, it is free from every imperfection, filth, and lasts forever. The "spiritual body" of the elect will be similar to the body of Jesus Christ after his resurrection, which was a visibly and tangibly real body, but at the same time so spiritual that it could suddenly move from place to place and penetrate other bodies. The glorified body of the Lord and the saved is delicate due to the power of the spirit, but also tangible due to reality. Sin made our soul desiring, animalistic, natural, without ceasing to be a spirit; and on the other hand, by glorification, our body will become spiritual, supernatural, without ceasing to be a real body.What I meant by getting our own body back is as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 15:35-54: According to the text, we will get a human body back (to that extent, our own), but a transformed one (to that extent, different). Thus, the "spiritual body" signifies the transference of the positive attributes of the spiritual soul to the physical body.
Regarding the Catholic and Protestant interpretation of justification and the role of grace, I can recommend THIS article.
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In relation to John 5:23, I maintain that in the Gospel, Jesus' words "so", "just as", "like", "as" generally mean a comparative basis, a model, the pattern, the model and follow it as much as possible, but at least strive for it. By definition, man cannot be "as" perfect as the God, but he can honor the Son as the Father, as long as he also worships him. John 5:23 fully confirms that the Son should be honored to the same degree as the Father: It would be a waste and unfair to bypass it. If needed, read this sentence two or three times. Everyone should honor the Son JUST AS they honor the Father. Therefore, take the respect given to the Father as a basis and extend it to the Son, as the text demands. The specific text of Jn 5:23 is not about human worship, yet you're trying to read human worship into it. Then ask yourself: Can a creature be honored in the same way ("just as") as God? The answer is clearly no, so the Son is not a created angel, but the only-begotten God (μονογενης θεος).
"Worship [proskuneo - προσκυνέω] the Lord your God, and serve him only!"
"But when he brings his firstborn into the world, he says: 'Let all God's angels worship [proskuneó - προσκυνέω] him.'"
So, it's the same Greek word: proskuneo is used, referring to both the Father and the Son.
The worship that belongs to God alone, and which the angels should not accept, is the same worship and veneration with which the angels worship the firstborn according to Heb 1:6. So, if can you accuse someone of "conflation" here, you would have to complain to God, the inspirer of the Scriptures. Indeed, it is a great puzzle for the Watchtower: the Scripture uses the same word for both the Father's and the Son's veneration, yet they divide it. They call both of them GOD with the same initial letter (there were no lowercase letters), yet they divide this too. Indeed, whoever read the original Greek text back then wouldn't likely have come to such a realization. Worship is the recognition and veneration of God. Through worship, the intelligent creature acknowledges God's absolute supremacy, uniqueness, and complete dependence grounded in His love.
Of course, Jehovah's Witnesses refer to the fact that proskuneo is a word with a double meaning, an apologist even asked me, "how do I know which meaning of proskuneó applies to Jesus?" You can simply counter-ask, "And how do you know that it is the other one?"
By the way, the Book of Revelation (check 7:15 and 22:3) uses not only the term proskuneo, but also the term latreúō in relation to Jesus, which, however, is only used in relation to worship of God. In the NWT it's translated as "sacred service". In Latin, this is where the term latria comes from, which simply means worship. Check: Jesus and Latreuô
""Well, it's just that what you claim is not being said here, it is clear that in this case, it is still God "himself" who createss (even so that the Son himself is God), not through a creature-archangel." - explain the passive occurence in Col 1:16 then - in every other occurence, When God is mentioned creating its the active." - You still do not understand my point, where does the Scriptures state that when the Father creates through the Son and in the Son, it is by way of a creature, thus flattening the clear Scriptural statements that God is creates solely "alone," "by himself", "with his own hands"? And if you are looking for "active" participation, you will find it in Hebrews 1:10.
""God's omnipotence does not extend to conceptual impossibilities" - How is impossible in view of the passive verb?" - So that for a creature to be a tool, a mean of creation, a "passive participant" is still a conceptual impossibility. Not to mention that, as we have seen, God specifically claims that he creates by himself, without any kind of "passive" participation or influence from creatures.
God alone is the creator (Genesis 1:1, Nehemiah 9:6, Psalm 102:26, Isaiah 44:24, 45:12,18, Acts 7:49-50, 17:24, Hebrews 11:3). The Father is the creator (Ephesians 3:14-15), as is the Son (John 1:1-4, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:2), and the Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:2, Job 33:4, Psalm 104:30), yet there are not three creator Gods, but one.
Colossians 1:16 clearly states that "in him all things were created" (not "all other things" - as the WTS brazenly falsifies), so Jesus is eternal and a creator (cf. Isaiah 9:6; Micah 5:2; John 1:1.3.10; 8:58; 13:19; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:2.8.10; 13:8; 1 John 1:1; Revelation 1:17-18; 22:13). In addition to the above definite references, the Scriptures also claim that God alone is the Creator (cf. Genesis 1:1; Psalm 33:6; Isaiah 40:28; 44:24; Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 11:12; Ephesians 3:9; Hebrews 2:10).
And I say again, the idea that a "lesser god", other than Jehovah, also participates in creation, is refuted by Isaiah 44:24; Malachi 2:10; Job 9:2,8, and by the fact that the Father did not create alone, but the Son (John 1:1-4, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:2) and the Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:2, Job 33:4, Psalm 104:30) did too. Creation is a divine ability, and a creature cannot even become an instrument of creation. God is uniquely the source of creation because God does not cooperate with any instrument, companion, or material in the act of creation. God's creative activity is exclusive. No one and nothing can establish as God does. God's creative ability is an incommunicable attribute for the creature. To be able to create, that is, to call the existing out of the non-existent, one must be God.
Check: Is Prototokos a 'Partitive Word?' and THIS.
""The burden of proof is on you" - why? you make the claim of more than one archangel to me" - Because Christianity, branded by you as "apostate", has claimed this for two thousand years, and Judaism even before that, and you have only come recently, claiming that there is only one archangel. Well, the burden of proof is on you.
"The bible is the final authority and never uses the plural form of "archangel" but only singular (and never mentions any other archangel)" - According to this, there can be only one of all things that are mentioned in the Bible only in the singular? Shall I list how many such things there are, so that you can believe the absurd conclusions this would lead to? Daniel 10:13 clearly proves that there are more angels with the same rank like Michael. By the way, there is no proper Hebrew word for "archangel", in Judaism they use the term "princes" (sharim), even in the Hebrew translation of the New Testament they can only describe it as: מִיכָאֵל, שַׂר הַמַּלְאָכִים (mîk̲āʾēl, śar hammalʾāk̲îm), that is, Michael, the speaker/minister of the angels.
""He could hardly speak of that, since John was not even alive at "the beginning"" - he could, quite easily - I can talk about my point of view of something in the distant past just as you can.. History books can do it. Your being misleading here to bolster your argument. IF we cant talk about something that happened in the past without being there, Why does the past tense exist?" - I didn't say it couldn't be, but not from his "own perspective", but under the inspiration of God, he wrote about the absolute beginning, which is clearly shown in the following verses, which are about the creation of created things.
""the time began with "the beginning", there was no time "before" the beginning." - according to Constable of the NET bible that is rooted in Greek philosophy (Origin and Philo used this argument)" - That you you use the word "philosophy" to mock everything you do not understand, it has not yet become a proven fact that this so-called "philosophy" is wrong. Time itself is the measure of change. When there was no creation, there was no change, therefore no time. There was only God, who could not change. Jesus is also said to be immutable. You may scoff at this as "Greek philosophy", but that's just common sense. Regarding the temporality of the world, it should be noted that it is dogma that God created the world with a creative act that began in time. This doctrine was denied by Eckhart, the dualists, and pantheists, who believe that at least the matter of the world has existed forever. According to the Fourth Lateran Council, God "created both kinds of world out of nothing at the very beginning of time"; this was reiterated by the First Vatican Council.
Are you seriously saying that time had no beginning? And where is this in the Bible? So time didn't have a beginning according to you (which the Bible doesn't say), but the Son did (which italso doesn't say).
""Whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting" - yet we have other bibles rendering as "Days of Old" why? because Olam can also simply mean "no specifically stated beginning or end"" - Can? Oh, and how do we know that it actually means exactly that here? Where does he clearly state that the Son is a creature? Nowhere.
66
"outside of time" argument
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
this is going to be very brief but a user recently tried to argue an argument that has already been refuted many times - the logic is somewhat sound but falls apart when the definition to the word used it looked and its usages in the bible.the word in question is "aionas" found in the scripture in question hebrews 1:2 .

(https://biblehub.com/hebrews/1-2.htm#lexicon)for starters look at the biblehub translations - do any of them state "outside of time" or that time was "created" in this moment - no because this seems to be heavily inspired by greek philosophy rather than the bible itself.note: i am not saying this word does not mean eternity or anything of the sort, i am saying this scripture some of the claims i dispute and can easily disprove, hence the argument is laughable.. bill mounce defines the word as:pr.

a period of time of significant character; life; an era; an age: hence, a state of things marking an age or era; the present order of nature; the natural condition of man, the world; ὁ αἰών, illimitable duration, eternity; as also, οἱ αἰῶνες, ὁ αἰῶν τῶν αἰώνων, οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων; by an aramaism οἱ αἰῶνες, the material universe, heb.
aqwsed12345
Blotty
It's not that you are not "allowed" collect quotations, but rather that you don't want to master the whole corpus of early Christian literature, the Bible, or the works of researchers, but just treat this corpus like a candy box, from which you randomly can take out a candy.
This will lead to such absurdities as that of the Watchtower - its infamous publication in this regard - 'Should You Believe in the Trinity?' represents, or what your "colleague", slimboyfat does. This is far from scientific methodology, you can't take a half-sentence or a paragraph from someone's oeuvre and show it as authority for a position that thydidn't actually support. This has nothing to do with scientific methodology and is deeply unfair to the original author.
Because, for example, if you were to delve into early Christian literature and not just look for some kind of "candy" for polemics, then you should realize how far the faith, life, and functioning of the early church is from what you imagine based on the Watchtower's statement that they " restored" first-century Christianity.
"" What is the point of this?" - I know people who defend other religions/ things they generally are no part of.. its sticking up for what you think is right.." - This still makes no sense, because if you believe this to be true, then why don't you sit in the front row in the "Kingdom Hall"? Such non-JW JWs are quite self-contradictory even from their own point of view. It's simply rather about that a person with more sense than the average JW will soon find the "jacket" too tight, i.e. the control of the "faithful and discreet slave", but by then they have already been too deeply conditioned to dislike historical Christianity, namely Arian theology anyway is being rationalist enoug, and this "Christianity falsified by Constantine" kind of conspiracy theory is also coming secular media, so that those guys simply can't be right, can they?
The Trinitarian denominations do not engage in polemics at idle, what the counter-JW apologist do, it is most similar to the counter-Jihad movements: we were pretty quiet, the Watchtower came and started throwing mud, mostly using our books in an abusive manner. Nothing else happens, except that the mud is thrown back to its place, this is not our method, but we can show a mirror.
Christian theology is hardly concerned with refuting the claims of the Watchtower, the ba ris simply too low for a serious theologian to deal with it. Do you think Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange dealt with the Watchtower? It's not worth it...
""there is no mention anywhere that heresy will dominate the Church, and that the true faith will have to be "restored" at some point." - can you back that up with actual evidence?" - I quoted a series of Bible verses above, and you also received a link to some of them, where they deal with whether there was a break, a significant change in the theology of the early Christian church. But of course the most important argument is that Jesus founded the Church and promised that even the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). This knocks out the entirety of Restorationist theology. After all, who founded your "church"? Where was your church before Russell?
""Furuli," - has expertise in Hebrew" - Besides the fact that he was also kicked out of the JW denomination and then wrote a book that the Governing Body is unbiblical, this is what was said about his method: In a 2004 issue of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Lester L. Grabbe, professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at the University of Hull, said of Furuli's study: "Once again we have an amateur who wants to rewrite scholarship. ... F. shows little evidence of having put his theories to the test with specialists in Mesopotamian astronomy and Persian history."
""mediator, then either we do not have a mediator, or Jesus has not ceased to be human." - The only thing left would be of the angel class, neither God nor Human - being a spirit doesn't automatically make you God" - You are talking about something else now, the given verse is not about some kind of "angel Jesus", but about the 'man' Jesus who is claimed to be our mediator. The Watchtower claims that Jesus has ceased to be a man, since his resurrection he is once again only an (arch)angel. Well, if Jesus is no longer a man, and the 'man Jesus' is our mediator, then what?
"The "was Adam created perfect link" is nothing more than a fanciful interpretation." - And this is not an argument, but a thought-terminating cliché. The Watchtower claims that redemption will only be the restoration of the Garden of Eden. 1Timothy 2:6 in the original text there is no "corresponding", this is also one of the infamous Bible forgery inserts in the NWT. Check THIS. While in the WTS theology the ramsom is of equal value, Jesus gives more than the restoration of Adam's perfect condition to those who believe in Him (Romans 5:15-16).
It is a mistake to believe that before the fall, people's way of life was the same as it will be in the promised paradise (that is, the heaven descending to earth). Man, as a living being with a body, is mortal by nature, even if his soul is incorruptible. Of course, the first pair of humans were free from the compulsion of death before they fell into sin. However, freedom from the compulsion of death is not exactly the same as immortality. So the first man could have died even without sin if he found himself in a situation incompatible with life (e.g. drowning, falling from too high, having his head cut off). He would therefore have had the option of a violent death. This follows from his physical nature. Freedom from the compulsion of death means that natural death (aging) and disease would have been unknown to man (and probably the entire living world). Augustine makes a precise distinction when he defines the gift of human immortality: in his original state, man is "able not to die" (posse non mori). P.S. true immortality, that is, that someone is "not able to die" (non posse mori), it exists only in God. The putting on of an incorruptible body presupposes some kind of transformation; if not death and resurrection, then at least transformation, as 1 Cor 16:50-54 speaks of. In other words, Adam would have had to change, even if he had remained sinless. In other words, God originally intended man to have a supernatural (by this I do not mean that he is immaterial) role, and after a suitable time man would have left the natural world in such a way that he would not have had to fight his bitter death and his body would not have seen deterioration. However, for God, falling into sin was not an unexpected event, it was "calculated" into the divine plan of redemption and salvation. See: Eph 1:4, 1 Peter 1:20. Such a "what if" type of questioning makes no sense from the perspective of God and the Bible: we can only talk about "possibilities" from a purely human perspective, not considering God's being and attributes. God sees our actions and decisions infallibly (in advance), the word "may" already loses its meaning. After all, in this approach there is only certainty, although obviously only for God.
According to the Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus Christ could not fully achieve human redemption. The Watchtower Society believes His primary and real role was not to die for the forgiveness of our sins, but to defend Jehovah's name, justify His sovereignty, and establish His kingdom.
in the JW theology Jesus - the Watchtower Society prefers to connect here to Romans 5:12-21 - is considered the second Adam. The first Adam was created as a perfect man, but lost this first perfection by succumbing to Lucifer's suggestion. Christ, as the second Adam, did not succumb to Satan's suggestion. He offered his body and full human life as a ransom sacrifice to "Jehovah" to atone for Adam's sin, which spread to the entire human race through inheritance. Jesus, the archangel Michael become human, is therefore considered the perfect second Adam, who remained sinless. As a result of his ransom sacrifice, everyone who claims it has the opportunity to rise to the same perfection.
However, Christ's ransom sacrifice is not enough. He only balanced Adam's transgression. But man has to balance his own mistakes and sins - even with the redemption - with his own performance. Redemption is therefore achieved not only by Christ, but also by faith and deeds. These deeds include: the proclamation of Jehovah's kingdom, life according to Jehovah's provisions, and submission to the Theocratic Society. Anyone who has not performed these deeds in their life and has not accepted Christ's ransom may get another (last) chance after being recreated, to become suitable.
From a biblical-theological point of view, how can this teaching of salvation and redemption be judged? It's a typical example of synergism: God does His part, man does his, and the two together result in redemption. However, this view is in irreconcilable contradiction with the gospel of the sinner's salvation by grace alone.
Jesus Christ did everything for our redemption on the cross of Golgotha: "It is finished" (Jn 19,30). His blood "cleanses us from all sin". He is "the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 Jn 1,7; 2,2). He "once for all entered the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption". "He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by his sacrifice." He offered an unblemished sacrifice for sins, and by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (Heb 9,12.26; 10,12.14).
"For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus... For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." (Rom 3,22-28). "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph 2,8-9).
Deeds certainly belong to Christianity, but always only as a consequence, and never as a condition. The Watchtower Society has to require deeds as a condition for salvation because it does not know the real Christ, who brought real, perfect forgiveness of sins and redemption. The Bible, however, proclaims to us the real Christ, who is true God and true man, who not only made "satisfaction" for Adam's transgression, but much more. He died not only for Adam's sin (and its consequences), but also for the sins of the entire world: past, present, and future sins. And he forgives everyone who comes to him with repentance and faith. He could only make this sacrifice, which is infinitely greater than Adam's transgression, because he is not only a true human being but also a true God from eternity.
Although Romans 5:12-21 contrasts Christ as the second Adam with the first Adam, it emphasizes that the two are not on the same level: "But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many" (v. 15). Sin and grace do not relate to each other like the two pans of a scale, each loaded with equal weight; in this context, it is not the Old Testament principle of retaliation (an eye for an eye...) that applies, but the great and gigantic preponderance of God's grace.
"" It's Jesus' commandment, that the Son must be honored in exactly the same way, just as the Father. " - so they are the ones who are "one" with Jesus are exactly "one" as he and the Father are (Kathos)? So they are God?" - Yes, I am familiar with this Watchtower argument related to John 17:11. The Watchtower Society, referring to this passage, tries to undermine the meaning of John 10:30 ("I and the Father are one"), claiming that the unity of the Father and the Son would only exist as it does among the believers. Now I'm not discussing John 10:30, but merely the refutation of the Society's interpretation of the above passage.
Jesus here asks the Father for the disciples to "be one", that is, a unified conviction and pursuit should bind them together, modeled on the unity of the divine persons. This is the model, but it does not mean that the unity of Christians would be exhausted in this, as the divine persons are not merely in some kind of "unity of will," but the Father and the Son have the same and identical divine reality, nature. Let's base this on the statement: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). If we were to interpret this verse with the same logic as the controversial passage, we would conclude that the perfection of the Heavenly Father is attainable by humans. Since this is not possible, it should be interpreted in the same way as the other: both the perfection of the Heavenly Father and the unity between the Father and the Son are goals and models before us that we can never achieve as humans, we can only converge towards. Neither means that such a degree of perfection or unity would be attainable.
In the High Priestly Prayer, some features of this essential unity also translate into the love relationship of Christians with each other, but this does not mean that every aspect of the Father-Son relationship also appears there. The unity of Christians with each other cannot include, for example, the mutual transmission of supernatural life or the presentation of atonement sacrifice to the Father. Instead, in this respect, they inherit the unity of the Father and the Son: whoever belongs to the Son also belongs to the Father (John 17:10). As the Father loves the Son, so the Son also loves his followers (17:23). Where the Son is, his followers will also be there (24).
This interpretation can rely on the next sectarian, raw, literal and formal logical interpretation, when Jesus phrases in his prayer that "they may be one as we are" (that is, Jesus with the Father). However, based on the use of the Bible, "so", "just as", "like", "as" does not necessarily mean equivalence, but rather a comparative basis, a model: it suggests a certain similarity between the unity of the divine persons and the unity lived in truth and love by God's children. Just to bring up as an example the scriptural statement, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). Obviously, we will not interpret this statement as the Watchtower tries to force the text of the High Priestly Prayer here and interpret it as Jesus calling to achieve the absolute perfection of God the Father - since, of course, this is conceptually impossible for a creature. This should be interpreted the same way as in the case of the high priestly prayer: the perfection of God the Father is the model of perfection, the "model", which should ultimately be an unreachable goal that we should keep in front of our eyes.
So going back to John 5:23, "just as" here means that this is the model, the pattern. However, while it is conceptually impossible to be "just as" perfect as God, it is possible to honor the Son in the same way as the Father if we worship him as the Father.
""Neh 9:6, Isa 45: 12, 48:13, Job 9:2,8, Psalm 95:5-6. Will you explain each one why it doesn't mean what it does? " - check the context there will be something in all of them, but listing one" - Oh, and for each of them, can you explain why "alone," "by himself," "with his own hands" doesn't mean what it means, but that it was actually created by an archangel? Pointing to "context" here is nothing more than an empty excuse, you still have the burden of proving whether the Bible considers creation through a creature possible.
""Where does it state the opposite? " Col 1:16 (The use of the passive verb for create, not active as is in most other occurences) Hebrews 1:2 John 1:3" - Well, it's just that what you claim is not being said here, it is clear that in this case, it is still God "himself" who createss (even so that the Son himself is God), not through a creature-archangel. Hebrews 1:10 is more specific than this, it does not attribute to the Son only some secondary, auxiliary participation in creation.
""creation through a creature, creation by a creature is both a logical and physical impossibility. You're on the defensive from here on out." - Who said God couldnt do something (creation) through a creature if he wanted too, you limit what God could do if he wanted too." - God's omnipotence does not extend to conceptual impossibilities, this is also the answer to the mocking question of atheists, whether he can create such a heavy stone that he cannot lift himself; or can he create a square circle. The omnipotence of God is bound by logic and ethics: God cannot undo what has once happened, cannot create a square circle; cannot sin, cannot annihilate Himself, etc. Omnipotence extends only to the everything, that is, to the totality of the real. Logical and metaphysical contradictions are not real, but null; therefore, they cannot be realized. And for this reason "it is more correct to say that these cannot be realized than to say that God cannot realize them." (Thom I 25, 3 c; cf. Anselm. Prosl. 7.) The possibility of sinning, however, is not an attribute of power or strength, but a sign of impotence and weakness. As Augustine rightly says: "God is omnipotent; and because He is omnipotent, He cannot die, He cannot be deceived, He cannot deceive, and what the Apostle says: He cannot deny Himself, He cannot be unfaithful to Himself." (August. Symb. ad cat. I 1 cf. Serm. 213, 1; 214, 4; ctra Faust. XXVI 5; Civ. Dei V 10, 1.) Divine omnipotence, after all, is one with divine wisdom and sanctity, it is the realized logic and ethics, the source of all logical and ethical reality and truth, not of nothingness. And creation by a creature belongs to the category of conceptual impossibility.
""if the Son is also the firstborn of the Father" - actaully it does, prototokos when used always has some sort of temporal meaning" - "Firstborn" does not have any "temporal meaning" taken by itself, obviously if it refers to a human, etc. of course they are temporal beiing, but this does not follow from the saying or not saying of the Firstborn, since it does not refer to such a thing in itself at all. "Firstborn" means "preeminence", "supremacy", "distinguished heir", "ruler", nothing more, nothing less. Context determines whether the term “first-born” in a particular passage should be interpreted as referring to supremacy of position as the preeminent one or the first one physically born. Since the whole context of Colossians chapter one is speaking about the supremacy of Christ as being the Creator rather than being of the creation, it is in this sense that Christ is called the “firstborn” or preeminent one in relation of the whole creation.
Israel "was the first nation to be chosen by him. It has always (since the time of Moses) been the first, but it has certainly never been “pre-eminent” among the nations! " - See Numbers 23:9, Israel was not counted among the nations. That is why the Jews called the other peoples, the gentiles "the nations" (goyim).
"And, of course, we must not change the inspired writer’s genitive noun (“of me”) in this verse to “over me” as has been done at Col. 1:15 in a few trinitarian Bibles (e.g. NIV)."- That the genitive implies belonging to the same category was your "argument", I just reversed it. At Colossians 1:15, a dynamic equivalence Bible translation can translate the text as "the Firstborn over the whole creation", since this is the natural meaning of the text. However, the NWT claims to be a "literal" translation, so it is not entitled to include "other" in the continuation.
"It is true that being first-born in a family was strongly connected with pre-eminence." - Good morning. So why would the apostle want to casually confess the Son's creatureness in a text where it is all about his supremacy?
- PSALM 89:27: David, who was the last born son of Jesse (cf. 1 Samuel 16:11), is called “first-born.”
- JEREMIAH 31:9: Ephraim, who was born after Manasseh (cf. Genesis 41:51-52), is called “first-born.”
- EXODUS 4:22: Israel is called God’s “first-born” son.
- JOB 18:13: An illness is called “the first-born of death.”
The Watchtower presents several arguments in defense of the insertion of the word "other" in verses 16-17:
- In Luke 13:2, some Bible translations render this word as "the rest," "everyone else." - But here, there is additional information that is not found there. It is written that these people were also Galileans. However, it is not written about Jesus that he is also a creature.
- Luke 21:29 - It is written that the fig tree also belongs to the category of trees. But it is not written about Jesus that he is also a creature.
- Philippians 2:21: This is a perfect own goal. Paul logically did not list Timothy, whom he praised, among those who seek not Jesus' interest but their own. The Watchtower's "logic" would demand this in this case as well.
Just because the Watchtower brought some translations where the word "pas" is translated as "everything else" in other places does not automatically justify their method. They need to construct a parallel between the specific Bible passages' message, speech situation, etc., and Colossians 1:16-17. The speech situation was different in those cases because it was stated about the unique entity (opposed to "everybody else", or "all other tings") that they were also Galileans, they were also trees, or it could not be said about Timothy that he was profit-seeking - so the reference is not good. The parallel does not work because the mentioned examples either do not have the factor justifying "everyone else," or it is present but guaranteed by an explicit mention (classification) that is missing from Colossians 1:16-17.
The argument related to Colossians 1:16 brings up several examples where it is clear that the "others" are of the same type as the one being discussed - such hypothetical gods, trees, names, governments, people, Galileans, and so on. These examples linguistically only demonstrate that if the context is already clear, the word "other" can sometimes be omitted from "all things" in Greek. For example, everyone else also gave to the treasury, and so did the poor widow. Those who were crushed by the tower in Siloam were also Galileans, as were those to whom Jesus compared them. Peter was an apostle, and so were the other apostles. But how it would become clear from the context of Colossians 1:16 that Jesus is also a creature is not clear.
""the fact is that neither in Judaism nor in Christianity has anyone ever believed that there is only one archangel" - you say this, but I would like you to actaully cite a scholarly source for this claim." - The burden of proof is on you, cite a single ancient Jewish or Christian author who claimed that there is only one archangel. The Scriptures refer to the "seven angels" who stand before the throne of the Lord, these are the chief princes (sharim), archangels in Greek.
""He already existed "in the beginning"." - or John was talking about his point of view..." - He could hardly speak of that, since John was not even alive at "the beginning", but under inspiration he spoke of the absolute beginning, that the Son already existed even then.
"Beginning should not be interpreted as anything other than a certain point in time, it doesn't say God "made the beginning"" - No, the time began with "the beginning", there was no time "before" the beginning. Temporality, change came into being with the beginning of creation. The beginning is when and with which everything, and thus time too, began.
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting [olam, עוֹלָֽם]." (Micah 5:2)
Whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting — Hebrew, מימי עולם מקדם, rendered by the LXX., απ αχης, εξ ημεων αιωνος; and exactly in the same sense by the Vulgate, ab initio, a diebus æternitatis, from the beginning, from the days of eternity. So these Hebrew expressions must of necessity signify in divers places of Scripture, being used to signify the eternity of God: see Psalm 55:19; Psalm 90:2; Proverbs 8:23; Habakkuk 1:12. The words naturally import an original, distinct from the birth of Christ mentioned in the foregoing sentence, which original is here declared to be from all eternity. The Prince whom Isaiah calls "Everlasting" (Isaiah 9:6), the Word who "was in the beginning with God" (John 1:1, 2).
66
"outside of time" argument
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
this is going to be very brief but a user recently tried to argue an argument that has already been refuted many times - the logic is somewhat sound but falls apart when the definition to the word used it looked and its usages in the bible.the word in question is "aionas" found in the scripture in question hebrews 1:2 .

(https://biblehub.com/hebrews/1-2.htm#lexicon)for starters look at the biblehub translations - do any of them state "outside of time" or that time was "created" in this moment - no because this seems to be heavily inspired by greek philosophy rather than the bible itself.note: i am not saying this word does not mean eternity or anything of the sort, i am saying this scripture some of the claims i dispute and can easily disprove, hence the argument is laughable.. bill mounce defines the word as:pr.

a period of time of significant character; life; an era; an age: hence, a state of things marking an age or era; the present order of nature; the natural condition of man, the world; ὁ αἰών, illimitable duration, eternity; as also, οἱ αἰῶνες, ὁ αἰῶν τῶν αἰώνων, οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων; by an aramaism οἱ αἰῶνες, the material universe, heb.
aqwsed12345
Blotty
Compared to the fact that - supposedly - you never have free time to dive into counter-arguments, you just responded really quickly :)
You say "instead of debating theology, let's debate linguistics" (I corrected your spelling mistakes myself). Well, why? Linguistics is not an end in itself, biblical hermeneutics is an auxiliary science of theology, just as in scholastic theology "philosophy is the handmaiden of theology" ("Philosophia est ancilla theologiae").
I honestly do not understand people who are not affiliated with the WTS religious organization, but who defend their theology in an amateur way. And that's true of Stafford, Furuli, and all the likes of you.
It can be frustrating to look beyond the Watchtower publications and just flip through a theology book and realize how inferior their theology is! At the same time, deducting the consequences would require a greater determination: could it be that the whole theaching was bullsh*t? Maybe "mainsteam" Christianity isn't even "apostate"? But those old women with rosaries, and the pedophile priests, and the Inquisition, and all the other 'leyenda negra'! Rather, they remain in this "neither here nor there" state, defending Watchtower theology without actual JW denominational membership. What is the point of this?
By the way, you don't understand linguistics as much as you do theology, you're a quote miner, why should I argue with you about this? The ones you linked, approx. all use the same well-known WTS "quote collection" method... that just like the dung beetle collects pieces of feces and turns them into a ball, they also cherry pick the quotes from the hands of authors whose general teaching they would not even accept at all. Instead of all kinds of independent research work, they collect half-sentences and sentences that can be quoted, that can be flagged and waved as "can you SEE?! Even him !!!"
About the alleged "great apostasy", check THIS and THIS too. By the way, "apostasy" in the Bible does not mean heresy, but abandonment of the Christian faith, and what is the point: there is no mention anywhere that heresy will dominate the Church, and that the true faith will have to be "restored" at some point.
"funny catholics acknowledge that their teachings arent in the bible" - I didn't say that, but that the Holy Scriptures is not a theology textbook, therefore the doctrines are not stated with doctrinal exactitude, but they can be found in content. We know exactly how the simple language of Scripture relates to the analytical concepts of theology: the language of Scripture and the language of theology relate to each other like the spoken, living (mother) tongue and grammar. In everyday speech, we do not use words such as nouns, adjectives, etc. but we only speak with the greatest naturalness. The language of the Bible is not a formal theological treatise, but rather like the mother tongue, the speech of a small child, natural speech. The language of theology is like school grammar, which is a formal description of the mother tongue. The sectarians, on the other hand, treat the Bible as a grammar book, not as a "living Word", which they constantly emphasize. The Bible should be approached fundamentally hermeneutically, not formally. But this is almost revealing, because who learns a language morphologically? Someone who learns a foreign language. So the Bible, God's Word is not their mother tongue.
By the way, the Catholic Church does not stands on the principle of "sola Scriptura", good morning. The principle of "prima Scriptura" is fine for Catholics. Contrary to the anti-Catholic Protestant myth, the Catholic Church has always valued the Bible and not suppressed it (it banned some Protestant translations, but Protestants did the same to Catholic editions and several other Protestant translations). This is proven - among other abundant and indisputable historical evidence - by the painstaking care of the monks, with which they preserved and copied the manuscripts, as well as constantly translating them into national languages (contrary to the untruth that they were only Latin Bibles). The Bible is a Catholic book, and however many Protestants may study it and claim it to be largely their own, they must admit that they are undeniably indebted to the Catholic Church for having defined the canon and preserved the Bible intact 1,400 for a year. How could the Catholic Church be "anti-biblical," as anti-Catholics say, when it has simultaneously preserved and deeply revered the Bible for so many years? This idea is as absurd as it is self-contradictory. If Catholicism really is as disgraceful as the anti-Catholics make us out to be, why didn't Protestantism compile its own Bible instead of using the one handed down to them by the so obviously unreliable Catholic Church?
The claim of the Catholic Church's anti-Biblical stance is a common fabrication, a false accusation. Even before Luther, there were Catholic Bible translations in national languages for centuries. It is true that for a long time they were PRIMARILY (which is not equivalent to the word exclusively) published in Latin, but this did not pose a problem in an era when everyone who could read certainly also knew Latin. I would also remind you that the reformers also wrote books in Latin, and the early Protestant theologians also put a lot of emphasis on the cultivation of the Latin language in church life until the first half of the 19th century.
A frequently heard "urban legend" is also that "the Catholic Church banned the Bible". However, this is a common fabrication, as "the" Bible itself was never banned, but rather it was the own translations of heretical movements that modern Protestants would also distance themselves from. The "New World Translations" of the time, if you will.
Look up the expression "post hoc, ergo propter hoc", which denotes a logical fallacy. Why? Because those who propagate this idea ignore the fact that printing was invented in the 15th century, not long before the Reformation (see Gutenberg). It was not because of the "evil Church's" anti-Biblical stance that the common people (most of whom couldn't even read) did not get enough Bibles, but because without book printing (hand-copied by monks!) it was physically impossible to reproduce as many copies as you can buy Bibles anywhere today. Those who keep raising this accusation, have they considered that maybe the Old Testament faithful Israelites or the early Christians ALL had their own Bible? If not, then aren't they applying a double standard when they demand something from the medieval Catholic Church that not even the communities they consider "good" meet? I'm honestly asking.
Or those who advocate individual interpretation of the Bible, do they ever consider that perhaps such individualism was not the ideal in Old Testament times or in the time of the apostles? Isn't it anachronistic to project their church ideals, which were only invented in the 19-20th century, back into antiquity? What does 2Peter 3:16, Proverbs 3:5, Acts 8:26-35, 1Tim 3:15, Acts 2:42, 2Peter 1:20 warn about?
Even today, I occasionally hear the accusation from the Protestant side that "only priests can read the Bible in Catholicism." This is a complete and utter misconception. Not only can everyone read it, but the Church strongly recommends the study of the Scriptures and encourages the faithful to do so. The Church generally only prescribes to the faithful that they should read a version of the Bible approved by the legitimate ecclesiastical authority, to which explanatory notes taken from the holy fathers and church scholars are also attached. In this way, the sacred text does not change in any way; the Church seeks to prevent misinterpretations and nonsensical interpretations. After all, Peter himself writes about Paul's letters that they are "difficult to understand" in places, and the unlearned can easily misinterpret them (2 Peter 3:16). It's indeed an incapable idea that every uneducated and unauthorized person reads their uninformed thoughts into the Scriptures. The very understandable reason that we should only read ecclesiastically approved biblical texts is that the Church, out of respect for the word of God, cannot allow anyone's son or daughter, or potential deliberate confusers and text falsifiers, to falsify the Bible or "translate" it freely as they please. After all, Martin Luther also arbitrarily corrected the Bible when he wrote "faith alone saves" instead of "faith saves". It is not only the right of the church teaching authority appointed by Christ to oppose such pranks, but also a sacred duty. After all, no one can rewrite the law book at their own discretion; let alone the word of God, the Scriptures!
Otherwise, for the JWs the interpretation of scripture and codification of doctrines is considered the responsibility of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses. They regularly warn their followers that if they deviate from their publications and study the Bible exclusively, there is a "danger" that they will quickly return to the teachings of "apostate Christendom".
"But Jehovah God has also provided his visible organization, his "faithful and discreet slave", made up of spirit-anointed ones, to help Christians in all nations to understand and apply properly the Bible in their lives. Unless we are in touch with this channel of communication that God is using, we will not progress along the road to life, no matter how much Bible reading we do." Watchtower 1981 Dec 1 p.27
No Catholic Encyclopedias can be considered the official proposition of the Magisterium, if you are interested in this, I recommend Denzinger to your attention.
"" if Jesus ceased to be man, then we no longer have a mediator." - a mediator is by definition neither side, at the time Jesus was a sinless man, neither God nor [sinful] man (everybody on earth)" - This interpretation fails because the New Testament declares Jesus to be Lord and God, as well as a man. And the quoted verse (1 Timothy 2:5) specifically refers to his human nature, that he is a mediator. And in Watchtower theology, Jesus ceased to be man by his death and just recreated/restored to be just an archangel again. If "the man Jesus Christ" is our (or of the "anointed class" for the JWs) mediator, then either we do not have a mediator, or Jesus has not ceased to be human. For the Watchtower, he ceased to be not only a sinful man (he never was), but a man in general, which the quoted part excludes. You can read about the Adam-Jesus parallel used by the apostle Paul and its Watchtowerite reinterpretation here:
- The significance of the “Antilytron”
- Was Adam created perfect?
"" in the New Testament in two ways:" - actaully three, according to John 10:34,35" - I have already answered this, this usage of words is not "used" in the New Testament, but is only mentioned on this one occasion, but does not build on it meaningful use, as advocated by the Watchtower. Again:
I know this WTS argument in connection with John 10:30-36, but Jesus does not say that he is "god" only in the same sense as the angels and judges were called "elohim" in the Psalms. First it should be noted that while in the Old Testament this usage of the word "gods" (elohim) does occur, in the New Testament it does not, there are only two categories of "THEOS": 1. the one true God, and 2. the false gods of the pagans (possibly Satan, as "the god of this world "). In John 10 Jesus gave a parable to his accusers which means: if even they could be called gods (in a certain sense), then how much more the only-begotten Son then? So it's clearly in the text He is God in a superior sense than the judges were called "gods" in the Psalm. In what sense namely then? He does not explain here exactly, but he makes it clear that it is not just in the same sense, but in a higher, superior sense. "Argumentum a fortiori" arguments are regularly used in Jewish law under the name kal va-chomer, literally "mild and severe", the mild case being the one we know about, while trying to infer about the more severe case. The Jews understood this and that's why they wanted to stone him "again" (v39).
"everything called a false god in the Bible receives worship - being "a god" does not mean you are inherently automatically false" - The apostle Paul calls those false Gods "so-called gods" (1 Corinthians 8:5), so he makes it clear that they do not exist. According John 5:23 Jesus commanded his believers that "all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father." This means that the Son deserves exactly the very same obeisance as the Father. And this is called worship, to worship a creature would be idolatry. The word "honor" (gr. time) is a broader concept than worship, so all worship is also respect, but not all respect is worship. In other words, if we read that the Son must be honored just as the Father is, that includes all kinds of honor for the Father, including worship. On the other hand, all kinds of honor for the Father are adoring respect, since no respect can be imagined that is not addressed to him as God. After all, the Father is none other than God: he is not a man and not a state body to be respected in a civil sense. Therefore, since all this honor also belongs to Jesus, his worthiness of worship is immediately given, and thus also his divinity of the same essence as that of the Father. Having a lesser god is also forbidden by the commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” It's Jesus' commandment, that the Son must be honored in exactly the same way, just as the Father. This speaks for itself, if the Father must be worshiped, then the Son must be worshipped, and only God can be worshiped, therefore He is truly God. Do the JWs honor the Son just as they honor the Father? Nope, at least since 1954 they don't.
The "Wisdom" (Hebrew: Chokhmah, חָכְמָה; Greek: sophia, σοφία) is grammatically feminine, an allegory. But this is not the only argument why this is not literally the Logos. Those quoted by you also do not claim that the Logos is """literally""" the Chokhmah, but they only apply it as a type, according to the rules and logic of typology. Application is not the same as literal identification. Wisdom is a central topic in the "sapiential" books, i.e. Proverbs, Psalms, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Book of Wisdom, Wisdom of Sirach, and to some extent Baruch. Should be apply their all declarations of the Wisdom to Jesus?
The Holy Scriptures declare not only at Isaiah 44:24 that God created "alone", "by himself", "with his own hands" etc., thus without any kind of participation of any creature, but in several places I have indicated, just look: Neh 9:6, Isa 45: 12, 48:13, Job 9:2,8, Psalm 95:5-6. Will you explain each one why it doesn't mean what it does? The fact that in a certain place the text mentions the false god before that does not make "alone" into "not actually alone", the burden of proof is on you. The Scriptures clearly state that God alone is the only creator, and the one who creates is God (Acts 14:15, Hebrews 3:4). Where does it state the opposite? Where does it say that any angels helped in, participated in the creation? Furthermore: creation through a creature, creation by a creature is both a logical and physical impossibility. You're on the defensive from here on out.
"There is nothing in the context which indicates the angels or the son or holy spirit was included in such a statement." - These are not included, but the WTS's creature-littlegod-archangel-demigod "Son" is. And the Holy Spirit is not the same as God's "force", since He also has power/force (Lk 4:14, Rom 15:13,19, 1 Cor 2:4) and can fill people with his power (Mic 3:8 cf. Acts 1: 8). The Bible clearly distinguishes the Holy Spirit from God's power (Zech 4,6, Lk 1,35, Acts 10,38, Rom 15:13,19, 1 Cor 2,4, 1 Thess 1,5), and above all, the Spirit is not excluded from creation because the Holy Spirit is also God (Acts 5:3-4.9).
"By your logic it means God the Father did it alone, God in the NT always refers to the Father." - The New Testament nowhere says that only God the Father created opposed to the Son, "the God" typically (but not necessarily) refers to the Father in the New Testament, indeed, but this does not exclude the Son (or the Holy Spirit) from the concept of God, just as the Father nor is it excluded to be "the Lord", by the fact that the Son is typically referred as "the Lord".
""You are reinterpreting the words" - says the person spouting claims that aren't even articulated in scripture.. 3 person 1 God" - the Holy Scripture says that there is one God, but at the same time it refers to three persons who are called Lord and God. Suitable for a theology book it does not give a systematized definition of it, but why should it? How much more "articulated" are the distinctive teachings of the Watchtower? As we can see, not at all.
Regarding the temporality of the world, it should be noted that it is dogma that God created the world with a creative act that began in time. This doctrine was denied by Eckhart, the dualists, and pantheists, who believe that at least the matter of the world has existed forever. According to the Fourth Lateran Council, God "created both kinds of world out of nothing at the very beginning of time"; this was reiterated by the First Vatican Council.
The Scripture asserts in its first sentence: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth". Then it proclaims this explicitly several times. For example: "Lord, in the beginning, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands". (Ps 102:26, cf. Ps 90:2 Eph 1:4, Jn 17:5)
Several of the Church Fathers interpret the first verse of Scripture as follows: "in the beginning" = "in the eternal Logos". For the Word is the beginning, the origin of everything (cf. Theophil. Autol. II 10; Clemens Al. Strom. VI 7; Basil. Hexaem. 1; August. Gen. Manich. I 2, 3.). However, they assert the temporality of the world; even Origen, although he teaches an endless cyclic succession of worlds along with the Stoics, considers it a proclamation of the apostles that this world of ours began at a specific time (Origen. Princip. praef. 7. Methodius Περὶ τῶν γεννητῶν energetically opposes his Stoic theory; cf. Tertul. Hermogen. 4.). Against the Arians, the Fathers argued that the eternity of the Word decisively proves His divinity; that is, they not only teach that this world was created in time, but also that temporality is inherent in the nature of the creature (Athanas. Serap. III 7; ctra Arian. I 29; Cyril. Al. Thesaur. 32 [M 75, 492]; Nyssen. De fide [M 45, 136a]). Augustine strongly emphasizes the temporality of the present world along with the other Fathers, and he draws profound conclusions from it (August. Civ. Dei X 30; XI 4, 2; XII 15, 4).
The doctrine is that angels are creatures; that is, God created them out of nothing with his omnipotent creative activity. This is a matter of faith. – This is opposed by the Gnostics, who view spiritual beings as emanations, outflows originating from the primal spirit; and by the pagans, who subscribe to the belief in their theogonies that spiritual beings can also be created through procreation. The official teaching of the Church is expressed at the Fourth Lateran and Vatican Council (Later. IV. Denz 428; Vatic. 3 cp 1 c. 5 Deo Denz 1783 1805).
The teaching of Scripture is clear: "For in him (the Son) all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him." (Col 1,16; cf. Rom 8,38, Ps 103,19–22, 148,1. Job 38,4–7.) The church fathers vigorously protest the Manichean conception that spirits can originate from the substance of God (August. Faust. XV 5 k.; Ctra Secundin. 5 k.; Synod Bracar. (a. 561) c. 5 Denz 235; cf. Iustin. Dial. 102, 4; 128.).
It's easy to understand with reason that angels can only come into existence through creation. As spiritual beings, they are simple; therefore, they cannot come from division, which accompanies every procreation. They cannot break away from God because God's absolute simplicity and immutability exclude even the thought of division. The Manicheans and pagans could only hold a different opinion because they had a materialistic monistic conception of God.
The truth of faith is that angels were created in time, or with time. According to the Fourth Lateran Council: "At the beginning of time, God created the angelic world." Many of the church fathers already see this explicitly in the first verse of Scripture: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth", which they generally interpreted as "In the beginning, God created the visible and invisible world." The article of the Apostolic Creed: "I believe in God, the Creator of heaven and earth", the Athanasian Creed states as the "creator of all visible and invisible beings" (Cf. Job 38,47 Os 2,21 2 Mac 15,13 Nehem 9,5 Col 1,16.).
It is not dogma, but a probable truth of faith, that God created the world of angels at the same time as the material world and not before.
The Fourth Lateran Council says, "Simultaneously from the beginning of time (simul ab initio temporis)." However, this simul may mean what it does in Sirach: "The one who lives forever created everything at once" (Vulg. simul; Sept. κοινῇ = collectively, as a whole, Sir 18,1; Thom Opusc. 19, 2.). Nevertheless, our thesis is very probable against the contrary: a) The simultaneous association and arrangement indicated by the council naturally implies simultaneity in time. If God created the two worlds for each other, it is most natural that he created them at the same time. As Thomas Aquinas's theological consideration says: the angels are a part of creation. As God's works are perfect, it is unlikely that God would create one part before the whole. b) The Scripture also indicates this with the immediate sense of "In the beginning God created"; and Job does not contradict: "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? ... When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38,4–7) This can be interpreted for the second story of creation (Gen 2. chapter), which is mainly about man and man's relation to the world and society. If, on the other hand, we consistently consider the essential assignment of the angelic world to the human world, then simultaneous creation is logical.
The 'theotes' used in Colossians 2:9 comes from the term 'theos' (=God), the "-tes" is the same adjectival suffix as -(i)ty,- ship in English. So 'theotes' means 'godship', 'being of god', 'deity', 'goodhead'. And 'theiotes' comes from the term 'theios', which means divine, godlike. The resulting 'theiotes' is therefore godlikeness, likeness to God. But this is not the only argument, but that the apostle Paul speaks not only of some kind of divinity, godlikenesss, but of "the fullness (pleroma) of the the deity", so that the Son did not only have some semi-divine nature, but the same divine reality as in the Father, moreover completely, since the The Father begot the Son from himself, from his own being (cf. Hebrews 1:3).
""since Jesus will descend with the trumpet of God, he is God." - how do you explain a prominent (trinitarian) dictionary reaching the same conclusion as the WT then?" - Why should I stand up for every statement of a "(trinitarian) dictionary"? There were some Protestant theologians, who saw the typology of Jesus in Michael, that should be their problem, but you can't use them in your favor, since they didn't claim it in the sense of the WTS theology.
"and no, trumpet of God is slightly different. nice try tho, you can come "with" a trumpet - you cant literally come "with" a voice and again ALL other occurences of this idiom mean teh voice of the subject." - But the Lord indeed can also descend "with the voice of (an) archangel" in such a way that He is not the archangel himself, but simply accompanied by the voice of an archangel. If the president enters the hall "with the sound of the orchestra", is the president the orchestra?
Let's not even talk about the fact that, according to JWs, Jesus is not only identical with Michael, but also with Abaddon, "angel of the abyss". Yet all Christians, even the Watchtower and Russel originally said that Abaddon is the Satan. See Charles Taze Russell: Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 7, p. 159, 1917 edition. The identification of Abaddon with Jesus first appears in the Watchtower of December 1, 1961.
""how do you prove that the plural here means the singular?" - because no other archangel is mentioned in the bible.. " - After all, how many things are there only one that is mentioned only once! Lysias is the only commander, isn't he? Both "arch" and "angel" are Greek words, you can't find them in the Hebrew Bible, in Judaism the archangels are called "princes" (sharim).
"I dont consider any other writings an authority as such" - Well, that's your problem, in any case, the fact is that neither in Judaism nor in Christianity has anyone ever believed that there is only one archangel, and the Scriptures do not declare such a thing either, on the contrary, Daniel 10:13 proves precisely that there are more who are of the same rank as Michael.
""As God knew, but as a human it was a new aspect. That's why he could say that he didn't know certain things," - according to you tho in some cases he switched natures at will - doesnt work." - Who talked about "switching"? The Council of Chalcedon declared as dogma that in Jesus, the hypostatic unity of the one person of the Logos does not eliminate the duality of divine and human nature. It was proved this from the Bible against the Monophysites, just as the Council at Ephesus proved the single personhood of Jesus against the Nestorians: here too they referred to the interchangeability of properties (communicatio idiomatum). For this not only implies that the ultimate subject of the properties (principium agendi quod) is identical, but also that their immediate subject (principium agendi quo) is not identical. Because if the latter were also identical, we could not speak of two sets of properties or actions about the same Jesus, but only one: either divine or human properties. If the Monophysites were right, then Jesus would not have been hungry, tired, or actually suffered a painful death, but only apparently, since these are incompatible with the divine nature.
Tertullian was the first to recognize this truth, but according to his rudimentary terminology, he spoke of two states (status) instead of two natures.
The argument against the Monophysites also referred to Jn 1:14: a) If humanity had ceased in Jesus, then the current formulation would have been the opposite in the prologue: the flesh became the Word. Therefore, there could not have been such a phenomenon as when the water in Cana ceased to be water and turned into wine. The council's expression is directed against this conception: unchangeably (atreptós). - b) The unity of divine and human nature could not have been created by a mixture (as with mixed drinks), or by a composition like a human being composed of body and soul. In the mixture, however, there would have to be a change in the divine nature, and in the case of the body-soul analogy, a metaphysical complexity would arise in God, which contradicts the dogma of God's simplicity. - The council's expression is directed against these analogies: not mixed together, inconfusedly (asynchytos, ἀσυγχύτως).
Some 17th century Protestant and later Anglican theologians interpreted this expression from Phil 2,7: "He emptied himself" as if Christ had voluntarily renounced his divine nature during his incarnation for his earthly time. However, this also contradicts the immutability of God. - What should we therefore understand from this expression? Only that he renounced the outward manifestations of his divine nature, hiding his divinity under the disguise of humanity. However, he sometimes asserted it, for example, during his miracles, but always through his body, i.e., his human nature, otherwise, the essential unity would have ceased, and the Word's immersion in human existence would have ceased.
""which conveys no idea of origin for God or for the Logos, simply continuous existence" - yes at least from the "beginning" they haven't stopped existing since then - However it doesnt prove continuous existence before the beginning." - Boom, you have just now admitted that the Son has been existing from "the beginning", which means precisely that he is eternal, since before "the Beginning" there was nothing, no time, only God. This was exactly what was said in the closing canon of the Nicene Council:
"But as for those who say, 'There was when He was not', and, 'Before being born He was not', and that 'He came into existence out of nothing', or who assert that 'the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance', or 'created', or 'is subject to alteration or change' – these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes."
"How are you going to prove before the beginning, our Hebrews 1:2 is already beaten." - There is no need to prove it separately, since "before the beginning" is conceptually meaningless, since whoever was already at the beginning, before the creation of the aions, was already there when there was no time. There was no time before the beginning, because time began then. The big bang hypothesis also contains something similar. "Before" "the beginning", the word "when" has no meaning. Jesus exists in eternity, but he derives his existence from the Father. Jesus had no beginning in time. Causally-logically, He has a beginning: the Father, from whom the Son is begotten before all aions, that's why He already existed "in the beginning". In contrast to the creatures who were "created in the beginning", the Son already "was", existed by then.
"My whole point about John 7:42 and the imperfect "was" is that it doesnt denote eternity." - Maybe because not the "was" alone itself, but the "in the beginning was" means eternity. Does the text theree say about David there that he already "was in the beginning"?
66
"outside of time" argument
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
this is going to be very brief but a user recently tried to argue an argument that has already been refuted many times - the logic is somewhat sound but falls apart when the definition to the word used it looked and its usages in the bible.the word in question is "aionas" found in the scripture in question hebrews 1:2 .

(https://biblehub.com/hebrews/1-2.htm#lexicon)for starters look at the biblehub translations - do any of them state "outside of time" or that time was "created" in this moment - no because this seems to be heavily inspired by greek philosophy rather than the bible itself.note: i am not saying this word does not mean eternity or anything of the sort, i am saying this scripture some of the claims i dispute and can easily disprove, hence the argument is laughable.. bill mounce defines the word as:pr.

a period of time of significant character; life; an era; an age: hence, a state of things marking an age or era; the present order of nature; the natural condition of man, the world; ὁ αἰών, illimitable duration, eternity; as also, οἱ αἰῶνες, ὁ αἰῶν τῶν αἰώνων, οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων; by an aramaism οἱ αἰῶνες, the material universe, heb.
aqwsed12345

I maintain that Proverbs 8 is not literally the Son, but a personification in a characteristic style of Old Testament Jewish wisdom literature. As a type, the Son can be used, but this is not an identification, but a typology. It cannot be used to support doctrine, especially since the terminology of the text does not strive for doctrinal precision at all, but praises wisdom in a characteristic style.
Do you believe that Christ is a woman who cries in the streets? (Proverbs 1:20,21) Was there a time when God had no wisdom? No. Wisdom is eternal as God. Messianic references in the Old Testament are either completely clear (e.g. Isaiah 53), or even if they are not completely clear, the New Testament clearly refers them to Christ (e.g. in Acts 2 in Peter's speech, etc.). However, nowhere in the New Testament did anyone apply Proverbs 8 to Jesus, nor does Solomon suggest that we should see more in the chapter than the description of wisdom. That is why, although the identification with Jesus seems like a nice parallel, it definitely lacks a strict biblical basis.
"“Luke does not claim in Acts 28:6 that Paul was actually "a god"” - you really muck up my words don't you, can you actually quote what I said? I didn't say that.." - I claim that there are two kinds of 'THOS' in the New Testament: 1. the one true God, 2. the false gods of the pagans, and Satan. But you claim that there is a third category, some kind of demigod-minor-god-archangel. Well, this alleged third category is not based on the verse you quoted, because Paul was actually classified in the 2nd category by the pagan people.
"I’ll ignore the Isaiah quotes as you quote them outside of their context" - That's cool, even though I caught you with it, but why would the context flatten the meaning? I didn't just quote Isaiah, find them all, in several translations.
You are reinterpreting the words, the meaning of birth/begetting will be "direct creation" and from creation "indirect creation." But the passages I quoted prove that there is no such thing as "indirect creation" in the Scriptures, which God would do through a creature! There is a kind of creation that God does "alone," "by himself", "with his own hands", he is not "helped" by some demigod or angel in any way!
So there is only one kind of creation, the "direct" creation. Therefore, if the Son participates (and not "just" "participitases", Hebres 1:10) in creation, it is only possible if it happens WITHIN the one Godhead. In comparison, the birth/begetting of the Son is something qualitatively different, which has nothing to do with creation.
"Job 9:8 - just compare the other similar statements made by countless others in the following:1 Kings 6:2; 6:14; 7:1; 8:27; 9:10; 15:23; 22:39; 2 Chron. 26:9; Ezra 5:11, etc." - Which claims that creatures, angels contribute to the creation of the world?
"“since ἔκτισε of the LXX still not the same as ποιηθέντα” - dictionary evidence? (same for: theotes and theitotes )" - First of all, about 600 years passed between the Septuagint and the Council of Nicaea, and the use of language also changes. For example, in the past, the English word "gun" meant only a cannon, now it means any firearm. 'ποιηθέντα' means "creature", "made", "created thing". ἔκτισε carries a much wider shade of meaning, appoints, etc.
Between theotes and theiotes, that certain letter i means the same thing as in the case of homoousios and homoiousios. The first means deity (godhead), the second means divinity, divine nature, godlike character. So without the "i" it means possessing the very same quality of God, thus being truly and fully God, with it a lesser, similar ("kind of") divine quality. The apostle uses the first in Colossians 2:9. Just like in 2 Peter 1:4: "theias koinōnoi physeōs". So it is correct to translate this as "divine nature", and theotes should have been 'deity', the WTS bias is obvious.
Michael" means "Who is like God?" - not "Who is as God" (Russell incorrectly translated it this way). The fact that Michael is a prominent angel, and as the "commander-in-chief" of the divine angelic hosts has a special place, is clear from every biblical passage where his name appears, but nowhere as the identical person to Christ. Jesus is much more above Michael and all angels (cf. Heb 1 etc.; see above).
For example, in Daniel 12:1 and Revelation 12:7-12, when the battle between Michael and Satan is mentioned, Michael acts here with Christ's full authority and commission, but not as Christ. Scripture repeatedly emphasizes that Christ does not fight alone against Satan and the demonic powers, but in the company of his angels - and among them, the first place is Michael, the archangel, whose voice will sound along with God's trumpet at Christ's return (1Thess 4:16; cf. Mt 24:30 par; 2Thess 1:7). Michael's voice only resounds loudly at the time of the world's judgment. However, during the resurrection of the dead, only the voice of Christ, the Son of God, will be heard.
Feel free to look at 1Thess 4:16, nowhere does it say that the mentioned "voice of the archangel" is the voice of the Lord. It does not say "his archangelic voice", etc., but that the voice of an archangel will accompany the return. "With the voice of an archangel," not "with his archangelic voice."
Let's not even talk about the fact that the same possessive structure appears in the sequel as the Greek original of the words "with the trumpet of God". Therefore, your logic would lead you to the point where you would also admit, arguing consistently: since Jesus will descend with the trumpet of God, he is God.
"“Archangel Michael is just an angel, a "ministering spirit"” - but he is not just an angel is he? He is “the great angel”" - This difference doesn't amount to the essence (nature) but only to the degrees of the same nature, that being angelic, and therefore, created. The "arch-" prefix does not denote a difference in nature, but the priority of the task/mission, so it is a question of respect here, not of two separate "angel species". An archangel is still an angel too, thus a "ministering spirit". Hebrews 2:5 proves that an angel cannot be the Messianic King, as the ruler.
"“Since Michael is not literally a "chief prince", but an archangel, the fact that he is "one of the chief princes" (Dan 10:13, LXX: “the great angel”) means that he is one of the archangels” - plural is sometimes used for things in the singular. and the bible never uses the plural." - Oh yes, and how do you prove that the plural here means the singular? In Hebrew (mîḵā’êl ’aḥaḏ haśśārîm hārišōnîm) there is clearly a plural, Michael is one of them, so there are more angels at the same rank as him, so there are more archangels, and the Jewish tradition has always believed so. Of course in the Hebew Bible they don't call them "archangels", since it's a Greek word! In Judaism, the highest ranking angels such as Michael, Raphael, Gabriel and Uriel, who are usually referred to as archangels in English, are given the title of śārīm (Hebrew: שָׂרִים, sing. שָׂר, śār), meaning "princes", to show their superior rank and status.
The Watchtower also refers to the fact that Michael is called "the archangel" in Jude 9, which they believe indicates that there is only one such angel. There would only be one commander with the same logic, namely Lysias, because in Acts 24:22 we read: "hotan Lysias ho chiliarchos katabē diagnōsomai ta kath' hymas".
A WTS-apologist once asked Justin Martyr already confessed in the second century that Lord Jesus was the "Angel of the Lord" in the Old Testament? The referenced place is surely his first Apology's LXIII chapter, in which among other things this is stated:
"The Jews, accordingly, being throughout of opinion that it was the Father of the universe who spoke to Moses, though He who spoke to him was indeed the Son of God, who is called both Angel and Apostle, are justly charged, both by the Spirit of prophecy and by Christ Himself, with knowing neither the Father nor the Son. For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, for the salvation of those who believe on Him, He endured both to be set at nought and to suffer, that by dying and rising again He might conquer death."
In a digression here, Justin insists against the Jews that Jesus already appeared in the Old Testament as the Angel of the Lord, who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. But with this, he did not affirm the angelic nature of Jesus, but denied the Jewish position that it was the Father who spoke to Moses, not the Son in any case. Justin also states that despite the ignorance of the Jews, God does indeed have a Son, who is not identical to the Father, as would be inferred from their position, but as the first-born Word of God, he is also God. This position already proves a primitive binitarianism, and the Jehovah's Witnesses bring shame upon themselves by trying to rashly enlist the martyr to their Arian view.
He alsored referred to that the Jews already translated in the Septuagint in Isaiah 9:6 as "The Angel of the Great Council. This attempt has exceptionally worked out, but in a way that is not commendable. Because this ideology of the Jehovah's Witnesses, demoting Christ to an angel, is indeed very Judaizer, and if they want to wear this decorative title proudly, I will not stand in their way. (Except that I will constantly quote the Letter to the Hebrews, which says that Christ is not an angel, because "to which of the angels did he ever say" etc. etc.) I would only be curious to know why those who cite the Septuagint as such an authority do not do so in the matter of substituting the name Jehovah with Kyrios, or why they do not ask the Jews what they think of the Septuagint now.
66
"outside of time" argument
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
this is going to be very brief but a user recently tried to argue an argument that has already been refuted many times - the logic is somewhat sound but falls apart when the definition to the word used it looked and its usages in the bible.the word in question is "aionas" found in the scripture in question hebrews 1:2 .

(https://biblehub.com/hebrews/1-2.htm#lexicon)for starters look at the biblehub translations - do any of them state "outside of time" or that time was "created" in this moment - no because this seems to be heavily inspired by greek philosophy rather than the bible itself.note: i am not saying this word does not mean eternity or anything of the sort, i am saying this scripture some of the claims i dispute and can easily disprove, hence the argument is laughable.. bill mounce defines the word as:pr.

a period of time of significant character; life; an era; an age: hence, a state of things marking an age or era; the present order of nature; the natural condition of man, the world; ὁ αἰών, illimitable duration, eternity; as also, οἱ αἰῶνες, ὁ αἰῶν τῶν αἰώνων, οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων; by an aramaism οἱ αἰῶνες, the material universe, heb.
aqwsed12345

Blotty
The fact that there is no prophecy in the New Testament that false teachings will take over (that's the "great apostasy") after the first century (for the contrary, yes) and that only 1,800 years later a charlatan (Russel) living on a continent that had not yet been discovered had to be "restored", is important because it follows that the true Christian faith is not to be found among the religious sects created in the modern age.
How can you really explain Matthew 16:18 from a "Restorationist" perspective?
From their point of view, what happened between the death of the apostles and the establishment of their denomination? Basically nothing. As if only Jesus had promised that after the death of the apostles you are left to yourselves, do whatever you want.
Who was the bearer of Watchtowerite Christianity in 875? And in 1278? There is no historical continuity at all.
Although they show a couple of historical precedents (like Servetus), they are individual examples, not carriers of continuity along the mainline Church. Well, this is like communist historiography, which considers all revolutions and peasant uprisings as its historical prototype.
Nobody talked about "inspired" councils, but about their "infallibility". Do not confuse the two. The infallibility of the Church can be derived from the Scripture. With the New Testament religion, the revelation is completed; we cannot expect any new revelations in terms of content; the religion of the New Testament is destined for all ages and religious demands in its unchanging form until the end of history, and in this sense, it is absolute.
Therefore, the infallibility of the Church is not inspiration, as inspiration would imply a new revelation, while infallibility refers to the interpretation, preservation, transmission, and teaching of the existing revelation without error.
God knows the weaknesses of human nature very well, so He wanted to assure His own that if a "dispute arises among the brethren", there should be an authority which derives not from itself but from God, and if it speaks in the name of God, then it undoubtedly teaches infallibly.
This task is fulfilled by the "organ" of the Catholic Church, visible and functioning in human persons, the Teaching Office (Magisterium). This Magisterium is the actual successor to the apostolic college led by Peter, according to the Catholic faith, which teaches in its power, thus fulfilling the promise of Jesus Christ: "behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20) This Magisterium is not the master of revelation, but its servant and guardian, much like the whole Church, in line with the above, is not the master, but the herald of revelation. If a dispute arises about the revealed nature of a truth of faith, due to divine assurance, this service, this office, through the Holy Spirit, affirms or rejects it.
The Word, revealed and embodied by the Holy Spirit, is authentically interpreted by the Church, living in the Holy Spirit sent by the Word. This revelation ended with the age of the apostles, and what Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit told them as revelation is passed on (paradósis, traditio), living in the Church through the same Holy Spirit. In this, the Catholic and Protestant teachings do not differ from each other. According to Protestants, its entirety is found exclusively in the Holy Scripture (sola Scriptura), while according to Catholics, it is primarily a living word, part of which is embodied in the inspired Holy Scripture.
It's impossible to have a new universal revelation; that is, private revelations, no matter how valuable the enlightenments and edifying elements they contain, cannot be the sources of new, universally valid and universally obligatory supernatural religious knowledge, and they can add nothing to the apostolic deposit of faith.
There can be no essentially new truths of faith; any new dogma is only the unveiling in a new form of an element of the deposit of faith that has been present from the beginning. It's impossible, in earthly life, to have a new kind of knowledge of truths of faith that differs from the believer's acceptance in some form of gnosis, or a fundamentally new interpretation of truths of faith in the spirit of modernism.
"For the doctrine of faith which God hath revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention, to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence, also, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our holy mother the Church has once declared; nor is that meaning ever to be departed from, under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them. Let, then, the intelligence, science, and wisdom of each and all, of individuals and of the whole Church, in all ages and all times, increase and flourish in abundance and vigor; but simply in its own proper kind, that is to say, in one and the same doctrine, one and the same sense, one and the same judgment. [...]
If any one shall assert it to be possible that sometimes, according to the progress of science, a sense is to be given to doctrines propounded by the Church different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema." (First Vatican Council)
Before an article of faith was dogmatized, it could be freely debated among theologians, but Jesus gave the Church the charisma of infallibility so that what the Church decided definitively would remain infallible for the faithful. The Church fulfills its teaching mission by faithfully preserving the deposit of faith (depositum fidei) it has received from the direct recipients of revelation, protecting its integrity and interpretation from all falsification, and presenting it authentically and with divine authority to all generations and to every age in all suitable modes of human instruction. Since this divinely appointed method of transmitting revelation is the only one suitable for people to accept the revelation in a manner corresponding to its origin, that is, with the faith due to the word of God, the Church's proposition (propositio Ecclesiae) is the only direct rule of faith for every person. However, the living teaching of the Church itself conforms to the Scripture and Tradition, as it draws its content from them as sources. Therefore, Scripture and Tradition are the indirect rules of faith, insofar as they guide the direct rule of faith, the teaching Church.
Christians who do not recognize universal councils as infallible are not Catholics, but Protestants. Imagine, there is not only the Watchtower, and everyone else. Protestants generally accept the content of the decisions of the early councils, but do not accept the Church as infallible (obviously, then they would not have seceded). But the Watchtower also uses the Bible based on a canon determined by a council, since how would they know that exactly those 27 books make up the canon of the New Testament? It was determined by the Church.
As a Catholic, I naturally believe in the infallibility of the Church. I believe that the two thousand year history of the Catholic Church is the greatest proof of the truth of the religion founded by Christ, since despite the many historical twists and difficulties, the Church has never disappeared.
It is clear from the Scripture that Jesus Christ envisioned a Church and founded one. Protestants also profess unity and uniqueness to some extent, as this fact is undoubtedly included in the Bible. However, since they cannot justify denominational unity, they either have to profess that the Church currently forms an invisible spiritual unity in the faith of Christ's redemption, i.e., the unity of the invisible Church, which will become visible in the future, or they apply the concept of one, unified, and true Church to their own denomination. In another exposition, we have already verified the requirement of the visibility of the Church, as well as the necessity of the Church's apostolicity, i.e., its continuity, and its infallibility. Thus, we are now trying to prove that the Church, and Christianity, cannot become a scene of schisms and disunity, and that the different visible ecclesiastical communities necessarily have to agree, otherwise they will detach from the body of the Church. Not only is an invisible spiritual unity necessary, but also a practical, visible, concrete unity. Denominationalism is a scandal. It is Jesus's will that we should be one, but not just in some indeterminate faith or the so-called fundamental tenets of faith (like the faith in Redemption) but in the entire creed and in all significant faith-based and moral questions that can influence or affect the path of an individual to salvation.
The Israel of the Old Testament may have fallen into idolatry and sin, but not into such a "great apostasy" as the Watchtower's interpretation of the two-thousand-year history of Christianity suggests.
Of course, I am not the person in any matter of authority, but it is not enough for you to mention names, I - unlike you - did not add a complete book, but highlighted one or two paragraphs related to the subject.
I do not rely on "Greek philosophy", but on reason, since the combined synthesis of faith and reason leads to the truth. In any case, you won't get hold of me by telling me that "this is philosophy!", it's such a Watchtower name-calling taunt, for any kind of thought-terminating cliché, as if a 5-year-old child would say: be-bebeee.
"“On the one hand, it claims that he is 1. Lord and God” - Lord is applied in different senses to different people" - In the New Testament, who should I call "the Lord" besides God? "Lord and God" can only be the one almighty God.
"if most bibles were honest about the divine name in the Hebrew scriptures this correlation would be nullified." - There are many Bible translations that have "Yahweh" where the Masoretic text has YHWH. On the other hand, the Old Testament divine name primarily associated with the First Temple cult is foreign to the theological environment of the New Testament
"God can be applied in different senses. As has already been demonstrated." - Yes, in the New Testament in two ways: 1. the one true God, 2. the false gods of the pagans and Satan. Demigods, minor gods, there are none.
""So what kind of talk is it when JWs claim that the New Testament does not know anything about a "dual nature"?" - because he gave up one for another (Phil 2:7)" - The verse you marked does not prove that what was before him, by becoming a man, ceased to be what He was, with the incarnation.
The kenosis doesn't mean "putting down" the deity, but taking up the humanity. He did not empty himself of the deity (which is impossible), it means He did not cling to His heavenly glory, but emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant. The eternal existence of the Son and His incarnation are contrasted in a similar way in John 1:14 and Galatians 4:4. Philippians 2:5-10 praises the Son's willingness to sacrifice and His love, with which He embraced the humble human fate and the work of redemption. The text refers to Jesus' three modes of existence: His eternal pre-existence, His earthly life, and His glorification according to his humanity after the resurrection. He did not regard possession of divine glory as something to be clung to as spoils, but He emptied Himself. It cannot not be understood as a renunciation of His deity, but rather that when He took on human nature, he retained His deity, but sought what belongs to true earthly humanity, the form of a servant, and not the glory as the divine person, but he was still fully God, while "hiding" his rank on earth, in the state of self-emptying. His behavior expresses humility, and He continued this throughout His earthly life: He was obedient to the point of death on the cross. He became like us in all things (Romans 8:3), for only in this way could He live a meritorious life, and only in this way could He represent us in His sacrifice. We apply kenosis to the person of the Son, insofar as He accepted the incarnation, but we also apply it to the earthly life of Christ, insofar as He went to the ultimate limit of renunciation. The completeness of kenosis was the acceptance of death. Paul mentions obedience to the point of death to highlight the complete acceptance of the servant's position.
Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother: What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed. With his incarnation, he took on human nature and will no longer put it down. On the other hand, 1 Timothy 2:5 is particularly problematic for the WTS theology, since they believe that Jesus ceased to be human when he died, and that his resurrection actually means recreation, restoration to be an angel, kind of docetism, cf. Lk 24:31.
"For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus"
So if Jesus ceased to be man, then we no longer have a mediator. Let's say that in the case of JWs, he is not mediator for the rank-and-file members (only for the "anointed" class, thus the inner party), to whom the majority of members belong based on the two-class salvation regime invented in 1935.
"The bible says flesh is flesh and spirit is spirit, the 2 are never intertwined" - And who said that his incarnation meant that the Logos "became flesh" (John 1:14), that what was spirit until then became flesh? It's no what was spirit, converted into flesh, but the Person, i.e who existed as spirit from eternety made flesh, it was not the spirit that became flesh, but the divine person took on human nature alongside his divine nature. This is the principle of hypostatic unity, the person unites the two natures.
"even the angels who took human form did not have both natures" - Who said that angels were incarnate, like Jesus did? The Son, the Logos, is the only person who did this. You will hardly find parallels, as it is unprecedented and unique.
The clearest derivation that the single person of Jesus Christ is the person of the Word can be deduced from the statement of Saint John's prologue: "And the Word became flesh" (John 1:14). The Bible proclaims the same Jesus of Nazareth as true God and true man. It describes both divine and human attributes of the same being. This can only be explained in such a way that we are talking about one person who possesses both divine and human properties and is the subject of both divine and human activities. The ultimate subject of properties and actions, according to philosophy, is always the "hypostasis", which is called a person (in Greek: prosopon; in Latin: persona) among intelligent beings (angels, humans).
The Bible asserts that the same one lay swaddled in the manger, whom the angel announced as the Son of the Most High. The same one was baptized in the Jordan like other people, but during this, the heavenly voice named him the beloved Son of the Father. He was hungry in the wilderness like a man, but angels served him as God. He dozed off tired on the Sea of Galilee as a man, then commanded the storm like God upon waking up. As a man, he was tormented and sweated in the Garden of Gethsemane, then as God, he laid the soldiers to the ground with a single word. He was buried as a man, and he rose from it with divine power.
Furthermore, statements like these are very characteristic: "No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man (who is in heaven)" (John 3:13); "...you killed the author of life" (Acts 3:15); "...Christ, who is God over all, forever blessed" (Romans 9:5), who physically descended from them.
It is a dogma that the Word took on human nature at the moment of its conception. "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman" (Gal 4:4). Thus, the Son's dispatch coincides with his human birth, or conception. This is also how the words of the Apostles' Creed are interpreted: "Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary".
Another dogma is that the personal union (hypostatic union) never ceases, it lasts forever. The Nicene Creed, in opposition to the Origenists, quoted the words of the angelic greeting "of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:33). The church fathers also referred to other scriptural locations: "But he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever" (Heb 7:24). "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb 13:8).
As to how the human and divine natures were connected, the answer is that it is the mystery of the Incarnation. So how can a man be God? Only in such a way that the divine personality also takes on human nature, almost dresses in human body and spirit; but besides, of course, remains the one who has been from eternity; God, the only begotten, eternal, divine Son of the Father. This dual nature is expressed by the term "God-man", or otherwise: the "incarnate Word".
How could finiteness and infiniteness, human weakness and divine perfection unite in Jesus? The only contradiction would be if in Jesus the divine and human attributes merged into one nature and thus mutually corrupted each other. However, this is not the case. On the contrary, Jesus remained a full God and at the same time a full man. In his humanity, he was small and weak, but in his divinity, he was infinite and omnipotent. In his humanity, he became like us in all things except sin, but in his divine nature, he was undoubtedly far above us. In his human nature, he was born, grew, learned, tired, was hungry, thirsty, cried, sweated, suffered, died, rose again; in his divine nature, he was eternal changelessness. All this did not cause any contradiction or split in him, but on the contrary: they complemented each other wonderfully.
"“so ontologically inferior to the Father regardless of his incarnation, why did he only have to "learn" obedience "in the days of his [being] flesh"?” - I can reflect this question straight back and say if Jesus has existed forever why did he need to learn it? Surely he would already have known it." - As God knew, but as a human it was a new aspect. That's why he could say that he didn't know certain things, he learned certain things as a human.
Therefore, the question hinges on Christ's dual nature. This is an 'absolute mystery', so we will never understand it. Jesus, as God, knew and knows the day of the final judgement, as a man he did not. However, as a human he could know, because in the Gospel, the phrase "not even the Son" appears in a peculiar way: the Son does not know the time, in the sense that his mission does not extend to communicating the timing. The humanity of Jesus is endowed with infused knowledge /scientia infusa/. As a human, he only knew infallibly what was part of his mission, but at any time he could know anything as God /e.g., Peter's tax money in the fish's belly/. Why? Because the Logos within him supplemented the person.
Moreover, the dual nature raises several such questions: Did Jesus die or not? After all, God never dies - Jesus, as God, is immortal, as a human, he died for sinful humanity. Did Jesus know the time of his birth when he was an embryo? As an embryo, no, as God, yes.
Theologians are in general agreement that Jesus had a) the beatific, or intuitive, vision of God; b) infused knowledge, and c) acquired knowledge (Catholic Encyclopedia, 930). The Three Kinds of Human Knowledge were Distinct, but not Separate
“[The] three kinds of human knowledge in Christ, required by what Scripture and revelation say of the God-man, did not hinder or exclude but rather complemented one another. The three were required on different grounds and existed on different levels, while uniting in one human consciousness for the purpose of Christ’s mission” (ibid., 938, 939).
The three kinds of knowledge were the acts and possession of one human intellect and one human awareness; they were distinct, not separated. Their perfect harmony, however, remains mysterious; it is part of the very mystery of Christ.” (ibid., 939)
"It also doesn't mean David was in Bethlehem for all eternity or existed in Bethlehem for all eternity" - Of course not, since the text does not say that David was already in Bethlehem "in the beginning". This statement is made only of the Logos. But here this argument is adressed:
Ἐν - Always introduces a prepositional phrase and always occurs with the dative. It has many definitions (“The uses of this prep. are so many-sided, and oft. so easily confused that a strictly systematic treatment is impossible.” BAG, 257. “ ˙En is the workhorse of prepositions in the NT, occurring more frequently and in more varied situations than any other.” Wallace. Grammar, 372.) , but its generic definition, and the one used here is in.
ἀρχῇ - Is occurring in the dative due to its pairing with εν, and is therefore describing the way in which the Word “was.” The word’s overarching idea is “first.” Depending on usage, it is translated as beginning, primary, first, head, authority, ruler, etc. Here it is obviously paralleling the LXX usage in Gen 1:1 '᾿Εν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν' where the prepositional phrase again precedes the sentence’s main idea; “God created heaven and the Earth in the beginning.” The parallel may seem to supply an answer as to the question of “what beginning?” but John’s allusion is unnecessary as the grammar itself answers the question for us. The anarthrous noun is no way less definite due to the lack of the article. (Robertson says about the lack of the article in prepositional phrases that, “[Prepositional phrases] were also often considered definite enough without the article....) In translation, an indefinite article makes no sense, “In a beginning,” and still begs the question. Indeed, inserting the indefinite article into the English translation still renders “beginning” definite, as “a beginning” must be subordinate to some event, though that event is unnamed. It is therefore proper to render the phrase, “In the beginning.”
Another point to consider is that ἀρχῇ is without limitation. That is, there is nothing in the sentence or the immediate context that can determine what beginning. It is justifiable therefore to assume that John intended that this “beginning” is the first beginning; the beginning of all that was created by God. “One can push back the "beginning" as far as you can imagine, and, according to John, the Word still is.” White, James. John 1:1 Meaning and Translation. Found at: http://vintage.aomin.org/JOHN1_1.html, Jan 12, 2014. This idea would include not just the material and spiritual, but also the immaterial- the time/space continuum. This perfectly parallels the idea found in Gen 1:1 in both the LXX as well as its Hebrew original; “The heavens and the earth” should rightly be taken as a merism for “all things,” (A fuller treatment is given under Context) which seems to be what is intended here. “In the beginning” is therefore to be understood as that point in time immediately following the “time” when there was nothing else besides God. [...]
ἦν - “was.” John employs the imperfect tense of ei˙mi (verb, “to be”) here. In general, the imperfect tense is used to convey a “(usually) past continuing” action. This is called the “Customary Imperfect.” “For the most part, the aorist takes a snapshot of the action while the imperfect (like the present) takes a motion picture, portraying the action as it unfolds. As such the imperfect is often incomplete and focuses on the process of the action…The imperfect is frequently used to indicate a regularly recurring activity in past time (habitual) or a state that continued for some time (general).” Wallace, Grammar, 541; 548. It is “imperfect” in that the action is not “perfected,” ie., it was not completed at once. In English, we do not have a corresponding tense that precisely replicates the imperfect. Generally, the past tense of “to be” is conjoined with a present participial verb. Here, a good equivalent would be “was being/existing.” If we were to accept this understanding of ἦν, we would understand this clause as meaning that the Logos “was already existing” in the beginning. Because arche is being taken in the sense of “the beginning of time,” reading ἦν as a customary imperfect would mean that the Logos would need to precede, include, and follow “the beginning.”
An exception to this is the Aoristic Imperfect. Daniel Wallace explains,“The imperfect tense is rarely used just like an aorist indicative, to indicate simple past.” A.T. Robertson adds that,
“They are sometimes called “aoristic” imperfects. This term is not a happy one, as Gildersleeve shows in his criticism of Stahl for his “synonym-mongering” and “multiplication of categories.” The only justification for the term is that, as already shown in the discussion of the aorist, it is not possible always to tell whether some forms are aorist ind. or imperf. ind.” (Robertson, Grammar, 882.)
In regards to the word in question he adds:
“Hence we need not insist that ἦν (Jo. 1:1) is strictly durative always (imperfect). It may be sometimes actually aorist also.” (Ibid., 883.)
On the other hand, Robertson also states, “Three times in this sentence John uses this imperfect of ei˙mi/, ‘to be,’ which conveys no idea of origin for God or for the Logos, simply continuous existence.” Robertson, A.T. Word Pictures of the New Testament. Found at: http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/robertsons-word-pictures/john/john-1-1.html Wallace says otherwise and mainly limits the use to the verb lego:
“The imperfect tense is rarely used just like an aorist indicative, to indicate simple past. This usage is virtually restricted to elegen in narrative literature. Even with this verb, however, the imperfect usually bears a different nuance.”
Another footnote: “Contra BDF, 170 (§329):
‘The aorist serves for a simple reference to an utterance previously made (especially for a specific pronouncement of an individual); the imperfect for the delineation of the content of a speech.’ Many examples of the imperfect fit this description (cf., e.g., Mark 4:21, 26; 6:10; 7:9; 12:38; Luke 5:36; 6:20; 9:23; 10:2; 21:10), but not all (e.g., Matt 9:11; Mark 4:9; 8:21, 24). Further, the imperfects that seem to be used aoristically also frequently have the aorist indicative (eipen) as a textual variant. This use of the imperfect is akin to the instantaneous present in that it usually involves a verb of saying as well.” Grammar, 553.
He then lists examples of this use of the imperfect as Matt 9:24; Mark 4:9; 5:30; 6:16; 8:21, 24; Luke 3:11; 16:5; 23:42; John 5:19; 8:23; 9:9. For clarity, Robertson does state though,
“But one must not think that the Greeks did not know how to distinguish between the aorist and the imperfect. They ‘did not care to use their finest tools on every occasion,’ but the line between aorist and imperf. was usually very sharply drawn.”
Even though Robertson admits this, his statement about the possibility of reading ἦν as an aorist still stands. So, we are unable to make a definitive statement about the reading in the first clause. John’s intention will become more apparent in the second and third clauses.
In regard to the two major views- the traditional view that the Logos is divine and the Arian view that the Logos is a lesser being- the inability to define how the verb is acting only affects the latter view. For the traditional view, whether ἦν is acting as an aorist or imperfect matters little. Because the traditional view presupposes (partly based on the interpretation of the verse in question) the infinite nature of the Logos, it goes without saying that the Logos “was” in the beginning in the aorist sense, but due to the presupposition, is not limited to that. Interpreting ἦν as an imperfect makes for a fuller meaning. On the other hand, if ἦν is interpreted as an imperfect, the typical Arian understanding fails entirely. The Arian view requires the aoristic treatment. If the λόγος of 1a is understood to transcend the ἀρχῇ, he necessarily is not bound to time, and is therefore timeless. This idea will be expanded upon in the section on theology.
- To be continued -
81
Careful what you wish for! Regarding Jehovah in the New Testament
by pizzahut2023 in
1. watchtower
2. bible
ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.

let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.

they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.
aqwsed12345
BoogerMan
None of the verses you quoted claim that Jesus was "only" a man. The Scriptures state that Jesus is both man and God at the same time. That's exactly one... and two pieces of natures, the two cannot be played against each other, since, as the Council of Chalcedon says, Jesus is "to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person (prosopon) and one Subsistence (hypostasis), not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten God (μονογενῆ Θεόν), the Word, the Lord Jesus Chris". Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother: What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed. With his incarnation, he took on human nature and will no longer put it down.
1Timothy 2:6 in the original text there is no "corresponding", this is also one of the infamous Bible forgery inserts in the NWT. Check THIS. While in the WTS theology the ramsom is of equal value, Jesus gives more than the restoration of Adam's perfect condition to those who believe in Him (Romans 5:15-16). Check these:
- The significance of the “Antilytron”
- Was Adam created perfect?
But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ's inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon's envy had taken away." and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature's being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, 'Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more'; and the Exsultet sings, 'O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer!'"
Check THIS too.
Whoever believes, God declares them justified (Rom 3:22-26), adopts them as His child (Jn 1:12-13, Gal 3:26, 4:6, Rom 8:15-16), is born of God (1Jn 5:1 cf. Jn 3:1-8), has received the Spirit (Jn 7:37-39, 1Cor 12:13-14), is sealed and anointed with Him (Eph 1:13, 2Cor 1:21-22), God dwells in them (Jn 14:17, Eph 3:17, 2Jn 9). All this is the work of God (Phil 1:6), whoever trusts in Him will not perish (Jn 3:16,10:28-30, 1Pt 1:3-9, Jude 24). Believers have one, common hope (Eph 4:3-6), the faith of the apostles and the believers is of equal value (2Pt 1:1).
Isn't it an unjust reward? According to the Watchtower Society, if after Adam's fall, converts would not only regain eternal life on earth, but could also go to heaven, then humanity would actually receive a higher reward through the fall, without deserving it, which would be unjust. Isn't that logical? However, let's take a look again at the scriptures referenced by the Society, and their claims about them:
Genesis 2:16-17 The Society claims that the "death" due for Adam's fall "is not the gate of heaven, but the punishment for disobedience."
This is indeed the case, and every Christian denomination views death as a punishment, as an enemy. The referenced section, however, says nothing about man's state after death.
1 Timothy 2:6 In the Society's translation, it reads: Christ "gave himself a corresponding ransom for all" (NWT). The ransom is "corresponding" in their translation, that is, equivalent. Adam lost perfect human life, and the last Adam, Jesus Christ, regained it by sacrificing his own perfect human life, he regained it for believers.
First of all, the original expression (antilytron = ransom) only appears here in the New Testament, and is just one of many similar expressions that describe the same redemption (Mt 20:28 lytron, Eph 1:14 apolytrosis, etc.). It cannot be claimed that a ransom - either in the Bible or in the world - is necessarily of equivalent value.
Secondly, God, according to the Bible, wants to give more than a perfect human life, even if it seems "unfair" to the Society. According to Paul (Rom 5:12-21), Adam is indeed a prefiguration of Jesus at one point: as sin entered the world through Adam and spread to everyone, so too did justification enter the world through Jesus, and is given to every believer (see 5:18-19). However, he continues: "But it is not true that the sin is like the gift of grace (...) God's grace and gift poured out even more abundantly (...) where the sin increased, there the grace poured out even more abundantly" (5:15-16,20). For example, according to 2Pt 1:4, believers "have become partakers of the divine nature", and according to 1Jn 3:1-2, they will become like Christ, etc. The question is not whether this applies to all believers or just 144,000, but whether, if it applies to even a single person, how could Christ's life be of equivalent value to Adam's?
Perhaps these few examples have shown how important it is to take into account the context of the text, the internal connections of a given section, and its original and true message before linking it to another. There is a big difference between searching the Bible for snippets that can be quoted to support our own theory, or letting the entire message of the Bible shape our own thinking.
It's easy to find sentences in the Bible that we could say too, but nobody would be interested in that. But if they are in the Bible, they support our thoughts with divine authority - or so it may seem. I encourage you to always study carefully the scriptures that "support" other teachings of the Society, and always try to discover the internal connections of the text, the real intention of the speaker. You will be surprised many times, but it is worth it!
On the other hand, 1 Timothy 2:5 is particularly problematic for the WTS theology, since they believe that Jesus ceased to be human when he died, and that his resurrection actually means recreation, restoration to be an angel.
"For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus"
So if Jesus ceased to be man, then we no longer have a mediator. Let's say that in the case of JWs, he is not mediator for the rank-and-file members (only for the "anointed" class, thus the inner party), to whom the majority of members belong based on the two-class salvation regime invented in 1935.
It shows how two-faced the image of God is for Jehovah's Witnesses. They claim that God must "prove" his sovereignty in the face of Satan's challenge. Even if they could find a point of reference for such a conception in Job 1, it would not be permissible to go so far as to place God on the same level as Satan, as if they were competitors, and that God must prove stronger than Satan. Such thoughts, even if the Jehovah's Witnesses would reject them, dangerously approach dualism (two, usually equally strong powers, fighting for control). This completely contradicts YHWH's omnipotence, uniqueness, sovereignty and (cf. Exodus 2:20k; Deuteronomy 6:4). Such declarations by Jehovah's Witnesses about God provide further evidence that, despite their emphasis on the singularity and absoluteness of Jehovah, they do not know the true, absolute God, but cobble together their own "god" who must fit into the world drama they have planned.
This is fully revealed when we look at Christ. In the section titled "God", I have already shown that Christ is not a creature, but the second person of the Trinity. It would therefore actually be unnecessary to further discuss whether Michael the archangel is identical to him. However, questions arise in relation to the soteriology that necessitate a closer examination of the image of God of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Here we see that the dualistic view of God held by Jehovah's Witnesses continues on various levels. They posit a dualism between Michael and Lucifer, between Jesus and Lucifer, and - on another level - between (Michael-)Jesus and Adam. Since they consider Jesus to be only an angelic being, or - temporarily - merely a human being, such a juxtaposition seems legitimate between "equal partners" or "contractors".
Meanwhile, of course, they ignore the fact that Jesus is not on the same level as angels and humans, but is completely on the side of God. His temporary human existence should not be misunderstood to mean that he was merely a human being, but rather that he was both a real God and a real human being. During his earthly ministry, he did not express his "angelic existence", but rather his divine form, without losing his divine being. On the other hand, Jehovah's Witnesses devalue Christ. Although they attribute a central place to his "ransom" - his sacrifice, according to their opinion, this is not sufficient for redemption.
Jehovah's Witnesses primarily cite four biblical passages in support of the alleged identity of Jesus Christ and Michael the archangel: Daniel 12:1; 1Thess 4:16; Jude 9 and Rev 12:7-12. In each place, Michael the archangel is spoken of. "Michael" means "Who is like God?" - not "Who is as God" (Russell incorrectly translated it this way). The fact that Michael is a prominent angel, and as the "commander-in-chief" of the divine angelic hosts has a special place, is clear from every biblical passage where his name appears, but nowhere as the identical person to Christ. Jesus is much more above Michael and all angels (cf. Heb 1 etc.; see above).
For example, in Daniel 12:1 and Revelation 12:7-12, when the battle between Michael and Satan is mentioned, Michael acts here with Christ's full authority and commission, but not as Christ. Scripture repeatedly emphasizes that Christ does not fight alone against Satan and the demonic powers, but in the company of his angels - and among them, the first place is Michael, the archangel, whose voice will sound along with God's trumpet at Christ's return (1Thess 4:16; cf. Mt 24:30 par; 2Thess 1:7). Michael's voice only resounds loudly at the time of the world's judgment. However, during the resurrection of the dead, only the voice of Christ, the Son of God, will be heard. It is solely Christ's - not Michael the Archangel's - power to bring the dead back to life (John 5:25.28k). After all, Christ is not a creature, but the living Son of God.
66
"outside of time" argument
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
this is going to be very brief but a user recently tried to argue an argument that has already been refuted many times - the logic is somewhat sound but falls apart when the definition to the word used it looked and its usages in the bible.the word in question is "aionas" found in the scripture in question hebrews 1:2 .

(https://biblehub.com/hebrews/1-2.htm#lexicon)for starters look at the biblehub translations - do any of them state "outside of time" or that time was "created" in this moment - no because this seems to be heavily inspired by greek philosophy rather than the bible itself.note: i am not saying this word does not mean eternity or anything of the sort, i am saying this scripture some of the claims i dispute and can easily disprove, hence the argument is laughable.. bill mounce defines the word as:pr.

a period of time of significant character; life; an era; an age: hence, a state of things marking an age or era; the present order of nature; the natural condition of man, the world; ὁ αἰών, illimitable duration, eternity; as also, οἱ αἰῶνες, ὁ αἰῶν τῶν αἰώνων, οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων; by an aramaism οἱ αἰῶνες, the material universe, heb.
aqwsed12345
Blotty
Well, those "evangelicals and other Christians" can say what they want, but from a Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) perspective, the Council of Nicaea, just like any other ecumenical council, makes an infallible decision, precisely because the Church is infallible. The infallibility of the Church is proven by the Scripture, primarily because Jesus Christ gave the charisma of infallibility to His Church:
1. He required people to believe in the teachings of the Church without reservation; whoever does not believe is condemned (Jn 3:18, 13:20, Mt 10:14, Mark 16:16). But it is incompatible with God's holiness to require decisive faith in teaching that could potentially be erroneous.
2. Therefore, He specifically ensured infallibility for His Church. When He gave the universal mission to teach, He also promised to be with his disciples until the end of the world (Mt 28:20; cf. Ex 3:10–12, Judges 6:14–16, Jer 1,8.19, Jn 3:2, Acts 10:38); He even identifies Himself and His teaching with that of the apostles: “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.” (Lk 10:16) He also promised the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who will teach the apostles all truth and make them witnesses of truth to the ends of the earth (Jn 14:16–26, 15:26, 16:13; Mt 10:20, Acts 1:5.8)
3. He ensured that the gates of hell would not prevail over His Church.
Secondly, the apostles were also convinced that they were infallibly proclaiming the truth of Christ:
1. At the Council of Jerusalem, they make a decisive decision with the introduction: it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us (Acts 15:28; cf. 5:22).
2. The apostle Paul was also convinced that Christ speaks through him; therefore, his decisions must be accepted as Christ's words; if even an angel from heaven were to preach otherwise, let him be accursed (Act 15,28; cf. 5,22.). This is all the more significant because St. Paul was not among those to whom the Savior's promises and assurances were directly addressed.
3. The apostles teach that the Church is "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15), the mystical body of Christ, and thus must remain inviolable, just like Him. The Church's mission is to provide firm faith: Jesus Christ appointed teachers for the edification of Christ's body, "Until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ; that henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive. But doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in him who is the head, even Christ" (Eph 4,11–16). It is impossible to fulfill this without infallible teaching.
4. The apostles confirmed their teaching with miracles, the seal of God (Act 2,43, 3:1, 5:12 9,32, 19:11–14, 2 Cor 12:12, Heb 2:3).
And this is also evident from the history of early Christianity, as the Church, after the apostolic age, constantly professed infallibility with its faith and teaching practice: According to Ignatius of Antioch, Jesus Christ is the thought of the Father, just as the bishops are in Christ's thought placed at the four ends of the world (Ignat. Eph 3, 2; cf. 16.). In the eyes of Theophilus, those "who abandon the chairs of truth are like a ship that sails from the safe harbor to the stormy sea and suffers shipwreck there." (Theophil. Autol. II 14.) Irenaeus says: "Where the Church is, there is the Holy Spirit and the charisma of truth; church leaders have also received the sure charisma of truth along with episcopal succession according to the Father's disposition." (Iren. III 4; 24, 1; IV 26, 2.) According to Tertullian, it is an impossible thought that the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent and asked from the Father to be the teacher of truth, would ever fail to fulfill this office (Tertul. Praescript. 28; cf. Cyprian. Epist. 59, 7.). From the beginning of the 4th century, the Church's conviction is expressed with elemental force at the ecumenical councils, which behave as the impeccable teachers of truth and the decisive judges of errors. The response to the heretics is sufficient: the Catholic Church does not teach this way (Athanas. Epist. ad Epict. 3; Hieron. Dial. c. Lucif. 28; August. in Ps 30, 3, 8).
The idea that a "great apostasy" could prevail over the true Church and that the "true teaching" could practically disappear for centuries, or even millennia, follows from the notion of the indefectibility of the Church, which, on the one hand, means that Jesus Christ's Church will remain until the end of time - this is constancy, perennitas. It also means it remains essentially unchanged in the form He established it - this is immutability, immutabilitas. The Church's indefectibility in the unaltered preservation and proclamation of the revealed truth is infallibility. Therefore, according to this concept, there will always be a visible Church on earth. Furthermore, the divine element of the Church: the gospel truth and grace, its instruments: the sacraments and the governing hierarchy leading to the sacrament, and its basic organization will always remain the same. However, it is not expected that the Church will remain unchanged in secondary matters, such as the fate of the Church over the course of history, the appearance and disappearance of various non-Christian origin institutions and movements, the direction of ecclesiastical pedagogy, etc.
What proves this? According to the prophets, the kingdom of the Messiah will have no end; God's new covenant, which He concludes with humanity, will be eternal (2 Chron 7:12–16, Is 9:6–7, 55:3, 61:8, Jer 31:31–6, 32:40, Dan 2:44, 7:14, Hos 2:19, Ps 72,5–7, 89,36–9; cf. Agg 2:7, Heb 7:8, Lk 1:32, Heb 12:27). Jesus assured that His Church will remain until the end of the world. When He sends His disciples into the world, He assures them: "Behold, I am with you until the end of the world." He builds it on a rock foundation so that "the gates of hell" (death, decay; or more likely: the attacks of the devil) cannot prevail against it (Mt 28:20; Mt 16:18; cf. 7:24, Jn 14:16). Here the Savior explicitly speaks only about the survival of His Church. But he indirectly testifies to its immutability as well; because He always speaks about His Church; however, a Church that significantly differs from His founding would no longer be His. The apostles proclaim the indefectibility of the Church when they call it the body of Jesus Christ, therefore they consider it a participant in His excellence. The Church is an "eternal covenant", an "unshakable kingdom", the fortress and pillar of truth; it is for the salvation of all people, therefore it must exist as long as there are people (1 Cor 12:12, Eph 122, 4:13, Col 1:18; Heb 13:20, 1 Cor 11:26; Heb 12:33 2 Cor 3:11). This essential immutability, however, is not stagnation and sterility, but on the contrary: the Church is the mustard seed that develops into a mighty tree, the grain of wheat that shoots into an ear, the leaven that permeates the body, the body of Christ maturing towards adulthood (Mt 13, Jn 12:24, Eph 1:23, 4:12, 1 Cor 12:12). The Church is guided and enlivened by the word of Christ, which is spirit and life, and gradually introduces the called ones into all truth (Jn 6:63, 1 Pet 1:23).
The Church Fathers were also deeply convinced that the founding of the Church falls into the fullness of time; it came at the last hour of the world day and therefore remains until the end of this hour, that is, until the end of the world. From Christ's presence in the Church, they proved that the Church essentially cannot change. "The Lord Christ received the anointing (the anointing by the Deity) to breathe imperishability into His Church", says Ignatius of Antioch already (Ignat. Eph 17, 1). This conviction speaks powerfully in the speech of John Chrysostom before his exile: "Do not waver from the Church! For nothing is stronger than the Church. It is higher than the sky, deeper than the earth; it never gets old!" (Chrysost. Hom. de captiv. Eutrop. 6; Hom. ante exil. 1 2) Augustine speaks in the same way: "No one can erase God's plan from the sky; no one can erase God's Church from the earth" August. Epist. 43, 9, 27; in Ps 101, 2, 8; Ambr. in Ps 40, 30; Athanas. in Ps 88, 38.).
Okay, let's continue. You refer to various names, but you do not mark your source precisely, exactly what it claims, in what context, and how it is related to the present discussion. After that, it's at least amusing that you accuse me of not citing sources, even though I probably checked your sources much more than you checked mine anyway.
I am well acquainted with the literature of WTS apologists and counter-WTS-apologists, and I can judge to what extent the former rely on scholarly materials. The works of Raymond Franz and others who previously worked at WTS headquarters also reveal well the method by which WTS collects "sources". Since they do not conduct own scholarly research at all, they are actually just "cherry-picking" from the works of mainstream Christianity researchers, collecting showy half-sentences and half-paragraphs. The unofficial WTS apologists do not do it more professionally either, in fact most of them are less so, often they can be refuted with WTS literature.
It's in vain to deny it: The New Testament itself explicitly teaches Jesus' dual nature, obviously not with doctrinal precision, since the Bible is not a theology textbook, but a "living Word", but in terms of content, yes. On the one hand, it claims that he is 1. Lord and God, and on the other hand, that he is 2. man. If I add this up, it's exactly two natures. On the one hand, Jesus is called the only-begotten God (John 1:18), and God who was with the Father in the beginning (John 1:1) - on the other hand, it confesses that He became flesh (John 1:14), similar to us, to destroy the devil through death. So what kind of talk is it when JWs claim that the New Testament does not know anything about a "dual nature"? What they bring up after this is a typical case of "arguing from silence": "Jesus does not say, 'The Father is greater than I am in my human nature'" - and can be easily strengthened with what we find in Philippians 2:5-8:
"though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross."
Here, the state of being of God is explicitly attributed to Jesus as an existing state, and the word God is without an article just as much as when mentioning equality with God in the next verse. Therefore, it is entirely natural to refer both mentions of "theos" to the same thing. In addition, equality with God appears as something instead of which Jesus became human, so we must imitate this self-sacrificing mindset. But Paul does not emphasize that we should not strive higher than we deserve, but that we should not even seek what is rightfully ours, and consider others superior to ourselves (Philippians 2:3). From this, it is highly probable to take the word "harpagmos" (booty) in the sense of "res rapta" (seized thing), and not what your translation suggests, namely that Jesus did not want to seize equality with God.
Every attempt to render "harpagmos" here with "seizing" or a similar action and argue on this basis that Jesus "did not entertain the idea of usurpation to become equal with God", or as the NWT renders it: "did not even consider the idea of trying to be equal to God." is entirely fruitless. The word "hegeomai" does not mean "to consider," but "to regard as." It has a well-defined complement in Greek, which is grammatically expressed with a double accusative. In light of this, the above interpretation would lead here: "Jesus did not regard being equal with God as robbery" - which would grammatically mean exactly the opposite of what JWs want to get out of it: that is, he considered it something that is due to him. This is the basis for Furuli's argument, who wants to exploit that the "-gmos" suffix primarily creates active-minded nouns.
What JWs confidently claim is also not true, namely that there is no biblical evidence that "this is to be understood only in terms of His human nature". For the Epistle to the Hebrews neatly summarizes how much His becoming lower can be attributed to His being human (5,7-9):
"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him"
That is, if He had not become human, He would not have needed to pray to the Father, nor to learn obedience, as He was not forced to do so as the Son. Otherwise: If from the beginning the Son were just a creature, so ontologically inferior to the Father regardless of his incarnation, why did he only have to "learn" obedience "in the days of his [being] flesh"? And Col 2:9 clearly proves that Jesus possessed the fullness (pleroma) of the deity (theotes, and not theitotes), not just some kind of demigod, lesser god ("a god") "quality".
The fact that John 7:42 is aorist (or can be understood as such) according to someone (who?), I have no idea why it would prove that John 1:1 is also aorist. Since you didn't indicate exactly what you mean, I assume that it means: "...the village where David was..." (tēs kōmēs hopou ēn Dauid). Well, 'ἦν' here hardly means that David was "created" in Bethlehem (???), but that he "was" there, so he lived there.
No one said that whoever of whom 'ἦν' is mentioned, it would be eternal, but it is specifically stated based on the full text of John 1:1a ("In the beginning was...") and its highlighted, solemn context (the prologue of the Gospel), that here the pre-existent logos identified with Jesus Christ "in the beginning" already "was", therefore existed. John does not begin his gospel with Jesus Christ's appearance in time and in this world, but he goes back to "the beginning", when there was not yet matter, thus there was no world, no space and time, but from God's eternal will, his word "let it be" brought the world into existence... "In this beginning" already existed the Word, the Logos, the divine nature of Jesus Christ.
This is the first part of the prologue, in which Saint John expounds the deepest supernatural revealed truths. In the beginning, therefore, before creation and time, the Word was already there. He did not become, he did not come into being in time, God did not create him: he was from the beginning. Therefore, the Word is partaker of the eternal divine nature, and he was with God the Father, as the second Person of the Trinity.
But if you seek further biblical parallel for what "the beginning" means, look at Proverbs 8:23. It explains where the divine wisdom is said to be everlasting ("I was set up from eternity (olam), and of old before the earth was made."); and it explains the connection in which the Word - God, therefore eternal, as clearly named ETERNAL life. (1 John 1:2, 5:20.)
"In the beginning", when created things came into being, therefore at the beginning of the world and time (as in Gen. 1:1), when there was nothing but God, before all creatures; he did not become, but was already, his existence was already in progress; so the Word is uncreated, before time, that is, without beginning, from eternity. He did not become in time and not at the time of his human birth (as claimed by the Arian and Ebionite heretics). The "beginning" is therefore not the divine essence and not the Father, the cause and origin of all things, as some Church Fathers figuratively explained. Other theologians understood it to mean that from the beginning of possible things, therefore from eternity. But it is unlikely that John would call the beginningless eternity a beginning.
So this "the beginning" (the contextual and the match of the terminology) refers back to Genesis 1:1, what John means here by "the beginning", when the Logos already existed. And indeed, based on JW ideology, John should write "In the beginning the Word was created", and the next two verses should also contain their favorite word "other".
Check THIS and THIS and THIS and THIS.
The fact that the Watchtower has been referring to Howard for decades is not new, nor is the fact that he distanced himself from it, HERE I have quoted what he said exactly.
The lack of distinction between lowercase and uppercase letters is important because according to this, anyone who read a New Testament manuscript in ancient times would never have thought that "THEOS" is understood in a different sense in the case of the Son than in the case of the Father. Especially not for those who heard it read aloud (cf. Romans 10:17). Based on this, the New Testament reveals an astonishing carelessness when it freely claims that the Son is "THEOS" and "KYRIOS", without emphatically stating that in this case it is just some inferior category of the divinity, in fact he's just an angel.
Luke does not claim in Acts 28:6 that Paul was actually "a god", but only reports that, based on his miracles, the people believed that he was like a (pagan false) god. So, yes, "theos" here still does not justify a true, but inferior (demigod-archangel) category of divinity claimed by the Watchtower, and it is not because of the latter that it is written there with a lowercase letter. There are two kinds of "THEOS" in the New Testament, 1. the one true God, 2. the false gods of the pagans, and Satan. Paul was only thought to belong to the 2nd category.
"Do I need to list the changes the trinity has gone through?" - The teaching of the Catholic Church about the Trinity has never changed, since the dogma cannot be changed. In comparison, the literature of the Watchtower becomes obsolete in just a few decades.
"Isnt it interesting that Athanasius was an Egyption Who were well known to believe in triads of gods" - Well...
1. The Trinity was not "invented" by Athanasius, so you will not achieve much by attacking him.
2. This is a very cheap argument called the association fallacy.
3. Arius also worked in Alexandria, i.e. in Egypt
4. At the time of Athanasius, Egypt no longer had a polytheistic majority, no one ever claimed that Athanasius had anything to do with the ancient Egyptian religion, on the contrary: hewas born to a Christian family in Alexandria
5. I recommend to your attention: THIS and THIS.
That only YHWH God created the world completely alone, without any participation of an archangel, is clearly stated in the Bible, here it is, quoted from the NWT:
“I am Jehovah, who made everything. I stretched out the heavens by myself, and I spread out the earth. Who was with me?" (Isaiah 44:24)
"I made the eartht and created man on it. I stretched out the heavens with my own hands, and I give orders to all their army.” (Isaiah 45:12)
"My own hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens. When I call to them, they stand up together." (Isaiah 48:13)
“You alone are Jehovah; you made the heavens, yes, the heaven of the heavens and all their army, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. And you preserve all of them alive, and the army of the heavens are bowing down to you." (Nehemiah 9:6)
" The sea, which he made, belongs to him, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before Jehovah our Maker." (Psalms 95:5-6)
"He spreads out the heavens by himself, and he treads upon the high waves of the sea." (Job 9:8)
"every house is constructed by someone, but the one who constructed all things is God." (Hebrews 3:4)
Look at the original language text for the highlighted words, it clearly asserts the complete exclusivity of God in the creation, and completely excludes the secondary creative participation attributed to the archangel-demigod Jesus in WTS theology. If you compare the above quotes with Hebrews 1:10, it only follows that the Son is also YHWH God, since they completely exclude the participation of a non-YHWH archangel in creation, which is conceptually excluded anyway.
The creation of the world is an exclusive divine activity. God is the one principle of everything, the creator of everything. This is denied by the Gnostics and all kinds of other dualists, who place a world-creating demiurge between the absolutely supreme and holy God and the completely evil matter, who then, as a creature, carries out creative activity.
The Church Fathers first proclaimed the Christian truth against the Gnostic demiurge (Iren. II 1-3; IV 21, 1). However, their main argument against the Arians was: The Word (whom they call a creature) created the world, therefore it must be God; a creature cannot create (Athanas. Ctra Arian. II 21 24; Nyssen. Eunom. II (M 45, 512c); Cyril. Al. C. Iulian. II.). Augustine vigorously opposed Philo's explanation that at the beginning of Scripture (Gen 1:20-26) God would have called on the angels to be his helpers in creation (August. Gen. ad litt. IX 15, 26 - 28 Civ. Dei XII 24; Trin. III 8, 13; cf. already Iren. I 22, 1; II 2, 4; IV 20, 1).
No existing or possible created being can possess creative power, not even in a supernatural way. For the creative activity presupposes infinite power. Because a) it creates something against nothing, which is separated from nothing by an infinite distance; bridging this infinite distance demands infinite power. b) Creation is directed towards being itself, the most universal reality, without any limitation from determinations and pre-existing matter; therefore, it is essentially unlimited power: whoever can create something can create anything at will. However, finite creatures cannot accept infinite capacity as a determinant of existence or as an accessory: the extent of the receiving subject sets a limit to the content of being that can be accepted; an infinite ocean cannot be poured into a finite container.
Moreover, a creature cannot even be made an instrument of creation. Because
- a) the task of the instrument is to prepare the material for the acceptance of the activity of the principal cause. But creation does not aim at existing matter; therefore, there is no exercise area (materia circa quam) for its operation. Most importantly,
- b) the instrumental causes must receive motion from the principal cause and transmit it to the matter, which must be shaped according to the intention of the principal cause. However, a finite creature, as such, is incapable of taking up and carrying the creative activity with infinite content, just as a stone or log is incapable of being the substantial carrier of spiritual activity, even in a supernatural way.
The term 'αἰώνιος' does not mean eternity in itself, but since αἰώνιος includes everything, including time, so he who existed before all αἰώνιος has no beginning in time, so eternal
The Greek-speaking ancient Christians also didn't have problem with the Proverbs 8:22, since ἔκτισε of the LXX still not the same as ποιηθέντα, which was the term condemned by the Nicene Creed. Pope Dionysius explained that ἔκτισε has many shades and meanings in the Greek language, does not mean what Arianism asserts. None of the Ante-Nicene Christians interpreted Proverbs 8:22 as the Arians did, or the JWs do today, as a proof that the Logos is a created being. How then? You can read it from Dionysius' epistle Against The Sabellians from 262, moreover HERE, and HERE.
Secondly, the Wisdom of Proverb 8:22 is not the Logos himself, it does not identify and equate with the Logos per se, but a literary form allegory applied, attributed to the Logos according to the rules of typology, and not to identify (equate) the two, so this could not be used to support a doctrine anyway. Proverbs 7:4–5 indicates clearly that the writer of Proverbs intended Wisdom to be presented as a woman. So the Wisdom of Proverbs 8 is nothing more than the poetically personified, gradual realization and manifestation of eternally existing, divine, uncreated wisdom in the created world, starting from the embryonic state of chaos up to the crown of the completed world, the son of man.
Check this too: Trinitarian Exegesis and Theology: Prov 8.22 according to the Cappadocian Fathers
1 Thessalonians 4:16 does not at all identify the voice of Jesus with the voice of the archangel, it only reveals that the coming of Jesus will be accompanied by the word of an archangel, as Christ predicted His return attended by angels (Matthew 24:31; Matthew 25:31; comp. 2 Thessalonians 1:7). Paul does not write “the Archangel,” as though pointing to some known Angelic Chief who is to blow this trumpet; his words are, with an archangel’s voice, indicating the majesty and power of the heavenly summons, and "the Lord" and the mentioned archangel are here evidently distinguished, the archangel is not Jesus himself. Whoever he is, he is doing the will of Christ. There is no Bible verse that claims that an archangel raises the dead. On the contrary: they rise up at the word of the son of God, not Michael. Check THIS and THIS and THIS.
Since Michael is not literally a "chief prince", but an archangel, the fact that he is "one of the chief princes" (Dan 10:13, LXX: “the great angel”) means that he is one of the archangels, so there are more archangels, as even the Jewish tradition claimed before the time of Christ. According to the Christian tradition, there are seven archangels, mentioned in Revelation 8:2 who "stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.". These sevent important angels mentioned in 16:1, additionally Revelation 4 and Revelation 5 mention "seven spirits", who are the "seven lamps of fire [that] were burning before the throne". Actually the Seraphim are the most powerful spirit creatures, then Cherubim, the archangels and simple angels have less authority then those (cf. Eph 1:21; Col 1:16; 2:10) Christ is not one of the angels, but the head of all of them (Colossians 2:10, where Paul probably ranged the Archangels amongst the Principalities [Archa]) to which he refers in Romans 8:38 [angels and principalities], Ephesians 1:21; Ephesians 3:10, Colossians 1:6; Colossians 2:10; Colossians 2:15), Christ will return surrounded by hosts of angels; comp. 1 Thessalonians 3:13; 2 Thessalonians 1:7; Matthew 16:27; Matthew 24:30 f., Matthew 25:31; Mark 8:38; Mark 13:26 f.; Luke 9:26. The following verse also proves that Jesus cannot be Michael, who is an angel:
"For He did not subject to angels the world to come, about which we are speaking." (Hebrews 2:5)
It is clearly seen from Revelation 12 that the woman's offspring, whom God takes up to heaven, and Archangel Michael are two separate persons. Similarly, in Jude 1, it is clear that Jesus Christ "the only Lord" (= the only Son of God), and "Michael the archangel" (= a very distinguished spiritual creature of God) are not the same. Archangel Michael is just an angel, a "ministering spirit", Jesus is not (Heb 1:5, 2:5). Michael is one of the chief princes (Dan 10:13), Jesus is the only authority (1Tim 6:15, Rev 17:14). Is 9:5 cf. 10:21, Neh 9:32, Jer 32:18, Deut 10:17, because the "mighty God" is YHWH God's title. Jesus himself laid down and took up his life (Jn 10:17-18), he also rebuilt the temple of his body (Jn 2:19-22). Jesus did indeed speak of the reconstruction of his own body (Jn 2:21), for he had the power to lay down and take up his life (Jn 10:17-18). Jesus, the Son, is not an angel. In Him the First and Last, the only God (Is 44:6, Rev 1:8, 22:13) died and rose again (Rev 1:17-18, 2:8). Therefore, every knee bows before Him (Is 45:23, Phil 2:10), and that is why there is no other savior (Is 43:11, Acts 4:12).
66
"outside of time" argument
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
this is going to be very brief but a user recently tried to argue an argument that has already been refuted many times - the logic is somewhat sound but falls apart when the definition to the word used it looked and its usages in the bible.the word in question is "aionas" found in the scripture in question hebrews 1:2 .

(https://biblehub.com/hebrews/1-2.htm#lexicon)for starters look at the biblehub translations - do any of them state "outside of time" or that time was "created" in this moment - no because this seems to be heavily inspired by greek philosophy rather than the bible itself.note: i am not saying this word does not mean eternity or anything of the sort, i am saying this scripture some of the claims i dispute and can easily disprove, hence the argument is laughable.. bill mounce defines the word as:pr.

a period of time of significant character; life; an era; an age: hence, a state of things marking an age or era; the present order of nature; the natural condition of man, the world; ὁ αἰών, illimitable duration, eternity; as also, οἱ αἰῶνες, ὁ αἰῶν τῶν αἰώνων, οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων; by an aramaism οἱ αἰῶνες, the material universe, heb.
aqwsed12345
Blotty
You just listed a bunch of names here, but without specifying when, where, and in what context they stated what, it's vague and imprecise. I highly doubt that any serious New Testament Greek linguist would ever claim that there is an aorist in John 1:1a ("en archē ēn ho Logos"). By the way, it contradicts that the WTS itself simply translates "ἦν" in the Greek text as "was" in the NWT, since the imperfect here corresponds to the English simple past.
In itself, self-taught knowledge does not in principle preclude someone from making relevant comments, but looking at the WTS apologist sites you also recommend, it is clear that they are looking for "evidence" for their "a priori" idea, rather than drawing conclusions from the evidence. For example, they quote the dictionary form of a certain word from a dictionary (which lists up to 8-10 different meanings), highlight the one they like in bold and underline, and then carry it around like a victory wreath saying "DO YOU SEE? Even according to 'the scholars' it can also be translated that way!" Well, this is anything but a scientific approach.
Furthermore, if someone does not have a scientific qualification and does not know the methodology of the given field, the studies that are born in it, he cannot even judge to what extent a study is an accepted consensus or not. A good example of this is George Howard's hypothesis, which he himself cautiously formulated as a suggestion (and most of his colleagues considered unfounded), yet the Watchtower has been bragging about his name for decades, at the same time creating the false impression that their method is based on scientific there is a consensus. Well, no, not by a long shot.
The lack of distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters is important, because the ancient reader reading the New Testament in the original could not have thought at all that if "THEOS" is mentioned in connection with Jesus, then some inferior demigod ("archangel") category must be thought of here.
This is even more so, since there was no canonized "Bible" in the first centuries, as we know it today, before the invention of book printing, mass production was out of the question, so the converts heard the Holy Scriptures not in writing, but orally. Faith comes from hearing, through the preaching of the apostles (Romans 10:17). The word was always preached by the apostles and not written down (1 Cor 15:1.11). Let the teaching that we heard from the apostles be our ideal (2Tim 1:13).
Accordingly, tinkering with initial letters is not only linguistically unfounded, but also anachronistic.
I don't call JWs "Arians" based on their organizational or doctrinal continuity with the 4th century Arians, but on the basis of their Christological similarity. The JWs have no doctrinal and organizational continuity, most of their specific teachings (two-class salvation regime, etc.) were never professed by anyone before, and even they only introduced them decades after their founding.
However, the true Church was not established in 1879/1881, but on the Pentecost of 33 AD. According to them, God had no people for almost 1900 years then. The followers of Chirst were simply called Christians in the NT (Acts 11:26), and according to Ignatius of Antioch the Church was called καθολικός since the Apostolic Age.
The fact that the Catholic Church was established in the 4th century can be, for example, Dan Brown says in The Da Vinci Code, but not a serious historian.
All Constantine did was free Christians from persecution and allow them to preach the gospel freely throughout the Roman Empire. He never combined the dogmas of the Church with politics and never interfered in the affairs of the Church or the Church in its political affairs. But we have already published many related articles on this question in more detail, especially on the role of Constantine the Great in the affairs of the Church.
In the Scripture itself, we can see that other emperors also show goodwill towards God's people, which the Scripture never condemned! Take the Persian ruler, Cyrus, for example. The Scriptures say that God moved the heart of Cyrus (an idolatrous king!) to rebuild the destroyed temple of God in Jerusalem and even return the sacred vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had stolen (Ezra, chapter 1). Does the idolatrous king's favor to the Jews (especially to rebuild God's temple) prove that Israel was at that time turned away from the truth? The Scriptures clearly answer NO, because God said this about the idolatrous king Cyrus: “He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid." (Isaiah 44:28). So the Scriptures clearly indicate that God can use even worldly powers to accomplish His will (Proverbs 21:1). The same thing happened with Constantine the Great: God turned the favor of the idolatrous emperor in favor of the Christians and used him as an instrument to end the state's persecution of the Church and allow the Gospel to spread unhindered throughout the Empire.
That the teaching of the Christian Church has "changed" or "corrupted", especially that the Church was created then, is completely unfounded. The apostles wrote about the True Church that it will remain unbroken until the coming of Jesus, and although false teachers come and go, they will never take over the Church, which "not even the gates of hell can prevail against". Consequently, true Christianity did not need to be "restored" by anyone in modern times.
That the only difference between "born" (tikto) / "begotten" (gennao) and "created" (ktizo) / "mae" (poio) is that the former is "directly" created, the and the latter with the "help" of an archangel, but what supports that beyond the Watchtower ideology? I don't see any substantive, qualitative difference between the "direct" and "indirect" creation, which would justify the strict distinction in word usage that we can read in the NT. Also: if the fact that the Son is only a creature and an angel is such an important and clear teaching, why does the Scriptures not state this ANYWHERE. Taking into account other statements, it stands out much more that the origin of the Son is quite different from the Father, qualitatively different from the creation of creatures.
""But there is no temporality, temporal succession in God...it is impossible that there was a time when he did not possess, lacked something." - precisicly my point, the very verb implies this meaning, therefore if you are 100% honest and this symbollically refers to the son - then there was a time he didnt exist or atleast wasnt with God." - However, the book of Proverbs is part of wisdom literature, and during the exegesis of the Holy Scriptures, the context, the role of the given book in the whole revelation, and its genre characteristics must always be taken into account. In Proverbs 8, if you read it all the way through, it cannot be evaluated as a definitive revelation of doctrinal truth at all, but rather a literary twist, and nowhere is there any indication that this happened in time. The following text lists a number of other verbs which also indicate that the statement "CANANI BRESITH DERCHO" here does not prove the Arian thesis that there was a time when Wisdom did not exist. This is personification and a literary genre.
It is also an absurd statement that God was not always wise and was not always Father, which follows from the principle of immutability of God. God has no beginning, end, or succession of moments in his own being, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God sees events in time and acts in time. By saying that God is eternal we mean that in essence, life, and action He is altogether beyond temporal limits and relations. He has neither beginning, nor end, nor duration by way of sequence or succession of moments. There is no past or future for God — but only an eternal present. If we say that He was or that He acted, or that He will be or will act, we mean in strictness that He is or that He acts; and this truth is well expressed by Christ when He says (John 8:58 — A.V.): "Before Abraham was, I am." Eternity, therefore, as predicated of God, does not mean indefinite duration in time — a meaning in which the term is sometimes used in other connections — but it means the total exclusion of the finiteness which time implies. God coexists with time, as He coexists with creatures, but He does not exist in time, so as to be subject to temporal relations: His self-existence is timeless.
In Isaiah 44:24, the most important part is not "Who was with me?", but that YHWH God "alone" "by himself" created the world. So angels may be ascribed presence, but not participation in the work of creation. If YHWH God creates with the "help" of an (arch)angel (now this is another question, that is also a conceptual impossibility), then the statement that he created "alone" is not true. If I claim that I built the house "alone", but in fact an "agent" did it, then I can hardly say that I built it "alone".
The fact that YHWH God creates "alone", i.e. without the "help" of angels, archangels, or secondary creator agents, is stated in the Scriptures in other places as well, cf. Job 9:8, Neh 9:6, Isa 45:12, 48:13, Psalm 95:5-6. Hebrews 1:10 explicitly states that Jesus' participation in creation is not just a secondary "helping agent" role. So if the Son is creator, and "only" YHWH God creates, then it also follows that the Son is also a true and real God. Hebrews 3:4 says the same thing: the one who creates, is God.
Neither Jesus nor the apostles identified the wisdom in Proverbs 8 with the Son by letter. Moreover, Proverbs 8 is nowhere cited in the New Testament. This is a typology that occurs frequently in the New Testament. If you were to take the countless statements about "wisdom" in the Old Testament and apply them all to Jesus, you would probably come up with quite absurd conclusions.
Catholic theology does not define the concepts of God based on the created world, it draws analogies, strictly stipulating that we can only talk about God analogically.
The infallibility of the Nicene Council and the ecunemical councils follows from the fact that:
- Mt 28:20 - Jesus promised: he will be with us forever, every day.
- Lk 10:16 - Christ speaks through the Church.
- Jn 14:26 - The Holy Spirit teaches us everything and brings everything to our mind.
- Jn 16:13 - Through the Holy Spirit we come to know the whole truth.
- Acts 15:28 - The apostles make decisions with the help of the Holy Spirit.
- Jn 14:16 - The Holy Spirit remains with the Church forever.
- Eph 3:9-10 - Through the Church, God's manifold wisdom has been revealed
- 1 Tim 3:15 - The Church is "the pillar and sure foundation of truth."
- 1Jn 2:27 - He teaches the Church through the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
- Acts 16:4 - believers must keep the decisions of the apostles, councils and superiors.
The exact translation of the word αἰών is difficult because these are ancient Greek concepts, which can be roughly described as: "the worlds", "the eras", "the ages", etc. By definition, it also includes the time, the temporality, which is also a created reality. The Council of Nicaea asserts (in Greek) that the Son begot from the Father before all αἰώνs (plural). You can hardly refute this statement in Greek on the basis of the New Testament, once it claims that even they were created by the Son.
An archangel is not fundamentally different from an angel, since an archangel is also an angel, just as an archbishop is a bishop. The WTS' claim that there is only one archangel (Michael) is also not true, since the Scriptures reveal that Michael is just "one of the chief princes" (Dan 10:13), so there are several spirit creatures of the same rank as him, i.e. archangels. Even the ancient Jewish tradition also always spoke of several archangels. The "arch-" prefix does not denote a difference in nature, but the priority of the task/mission, so it is a question of respect here, not of two separate "angel species".
"you omit part of Col 2:9 - selective quoting, "God was pleased"" - In addition to the fact that the Nicene Christology also affirms that the Son received both his existence and divinity from the Father (however, not in time and not in an accidental way, which can be peeled off from him, in an ontologically inferior way), the 1:19 cited here by the Watchtower, the Greek text has no trace of it being an accidental will of the Father, on the contrary, the Fullness wanted it that way: "hoti en autō eudokēsen pan to plērōma katoikēsai". This fullness is, according to the immediate precedent, the fullness of deity, not some vague, diffusive, and indistinct divine "nature" fullness. Your denomination is trying to restrict this to some undefined attributes, which the apostle does not do.
"at one point Jesus didnt have authority - at another he did." - The dual nature of Jesus can indeed be significant, but it can only be understood after his Incarnation, his becoming flesh, the scene described in Jude 9 about the dispute over the corpse of Moses, by definition, is dated to the time immediately after the death of Moses, by definition long before the incarnation of Jesus. So, at the time of Moses' death, Michael had no authority condemn Satan. And Jesus only at his incarnation was made "lower than the angels" (Hebrews 2:7)
1 Thessalonians 4:16 speak generally, without an article, "en phōnē archangelou" (with voice of (an) archangel), and does not call Jesus' voice the voice of the archangel at all.
By saying that God is eternal we mean that in essence, life, and action He is altogether beyond temporal limits and relations. He has neither beginning, nor end, nor duration by way of sequence or succession of moments. There is no past or future for God — but only an eternal present. If we say that He was or that He acted, or that He will be or will act, we mean in strictness that He is or that He acts; and this truth is well expressed by Christ when He says (John 8:58): "Before Abraham was, I am." Eternity, therefore, as predicated of God, does not mean indefinite duration in time — a meaning in which the term is sometimes used in other connections — but it means the total exclusion of the finiteness which time implies.