Jesus is God

[dwight92070]

This is really tiring - first, I never said "MULTITUDE" - and inferences are just that. I don't have the time or inclination to find them - I have nothing to prove to you. You are the one with the affirmative statement and you are the one that must prove your proposition. I denied it or at least don't accept it. If you want to prove otherwise, go ahead. You have asked me questions and I have answered them. You are trying to prove that Jesus is God and I have either responded to your assertions or asked you further questions - I am not trying to prove anything - you are.

Dwight - Excuse me, your actual statement was that the scripture is FULL OF REFERENCES that show that Jesus had faith in God. I didn't remember the actual word, so I used the word "multitude", which is really the same thing. Why are you being so picky? I think the Bible proves that Jesus is God and always has, but you don't want to believe that the Bible is full of references that show that He is. You don't accept the true meaning of John 5:18, which shows that Jesus, the Son of God was equal with God. Many other verses show us that the Son of God is God: Isaiah declared that in Is. 9:6; Matthew said it in Mat.1:23; John taught it in Jn 1:1,14; Thomas boldly said it in John 20:28; Paul plainly said it in Titus 2:13; the author of Hebrews quoted the Father declaring that His Son was God in Hebrews 1:8-9; Peter also agrees that the Son is God in 2 Peter 1:1; Jesus Himself claims to be the first and the last in Revelation 1:17 and Rev. 2:8.

Dwight - But all of those are wrongly translated by biased Trinitarians, or are not be taken literally, according to you and Paidion and all the other non-Trinitarians. I think I see now why you don't like the "scattergun" approach. It's like a lawyer that has many pieces of evidence. If he throws all of them on the table at once, it would overwhelm the jury to decide in his favor. His opponent would rather that he only put one piece on the table at a time, so he can distract the jury from seeing ALL the other evidence. His opponent wants to spends hours on one piece of evidence and try to dissuade the jurors into thinking that they're not really seeing what they're actually looking at.

[darinhouston]

a "MULTITUDE" of weak points creates nothing but a facade

[dwight92070]

I know - since you can't refute my last post on page 53, you resort to calling my evidence weak, but it actually is Biblically accurate.

[darinhouston]

I know - since you can't refute my last post on page 53, you resort to calling my evidence weak, but it actually is Biblically accurate.

Believe what you want, but did you miss my reference to Jesus' prayer in John 17? It's one of the most subordinate prayers anyone could ever pray and it was directly to the Father in the presence of others. He often prayed before performing miracles, the clear inference being that he was praying for guidance and power of the Spirit. Not something inherent in himself - and ALWAYS EVERYTHING done not for his own glory but to the glory of his Father.

You're just seeing what you want to see and pretending your positions are coherent arguments where they aren't to others - seeing confirming patterns and considering them evidence or argument. We're all guilty of that from time to time, but this is extreme.

I could (if motivated) provide list after list of passages that likewise "sound" or "seem" or "infer" the contrary position but that is not a very honest or edifying way to deal with such a position.

[dwight92070]

I know - since you can't refute my last post on page 53, you resort to calling my evidence weak, but it actually is Biblically accurate.

Believe what you want, but did you miss my reference to Jesus' prayer in John 17? It's one of the most subordinate prayers anyone could ever pray and it was directly to the Father in the presence of others.

Dwight - You're still not getting what I said. I DID NOT SAY THAT Jesus did not pray in the presence of others or within earshot of others. I said that He did not pray WITH OTHERS, like Christians praying together in a prayer meeting, where SEVERAL PEOPLE PRAY, NOT JUST ONE. Whenever the Bible shows Jesus praying, He is the only one praying. No one is kneeling or bowing their head beside Him and adding their prayers to His, as we do in our homechurch, for example, and I would assume that you do with your Christian friends. Acts 4:24-31 is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You never see Jesus take His apostles aside and then say, "Let's pray together."

Dwight - If you could show me one example of Jesus having faith in God, I would be surprised. So far, you have not. The verses that you presented did not show that. Again, One who is God, does not need faith in God.

[Paidion]

Dwight asks for ONE EXAMPLE of Jesus having faith in God.

hEBREWS 2
10 ¶ It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
11 For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters,
12 saying, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."
13 And again, "I will put my trust in him." And again, "Here am I and the children whom God has given me."

[darinhouston]

Dwight asks for ONE EXAMPLE of Jesus having faith in God.

hEBREWS 2
10 ¶ It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
11 For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters,
12 saying, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."
13 And again, "I will put my trust in him." And again, "Here am I and the children whom God has given me."

This article explains the implicit faith of Jesus pretty well...

https://trinities.org/blog/did-jesus-ha ... od-part-1/

In “How Jesus’ Not Having Faith In God Affirms His Deity” at the Thinking Christian blog, Tom Gilson argues that the New Testament, by not teaching that Jesus had faith in God, implies that Jesus is God himself. Thus, even the synoptic gospels implicitly teach that Jesus is God.

Here, I’ll comment on his first post in the series; next time, his second post.

In part Mr. Gilson says (emphases added)

…didn’t Jesus have the greatest faith ever known?

No, he didn’t, at least not according to the Gospels. Jesus uses the word “faith” 41 times in the Gospels (English Standard Version), and in every case he was speaking of someone else’s faith (or lack of it). He never used the term in the first person, speaking of his own faith. No other writer in the Bible spoke of Jesus’ faith, either.

Contrast that with Paul, for whom faith was definitely a first-person experience..

Again,

…the Bible tells us Jesus is God incarnate. While it might make sense for you or me to speak of having faith in ourselves, it’s absurd to think of God as having faith in himself. We talk of faith in ourselves because we know there’s reason sometimes to doubt. God knows there is never reason in himself to doubt.

When we trust in God, we trust in another, who has promised to act on our behalf in accord with his character and his promises. Jesus doesn’t look to God to act on his behalf.

… The only way that makes sense is if he thought he was exempt from the need for faith; and the only way any person could be exempt from the need to trust in God would be if that person were God.

I want to argue that Mr. Gilson is mistaken. First, I’m going to just state and then lay aside the important point that his reading of the New Testament is incoherent, because if Jesus and God are one and the same, they can’t differ – but the New Testament assumes and asserts them to have differed in many ways. I’ll stick to this point: the gospels don’t need to say that Jesus had faith in God, because they clearly portray Jesus’s faith in God. Yes, he is a main object of faith in the New Testament.But he’s also a hero of faith, an exemplar of faith, a man who trusted God to the utmost, indeed, to and through his own death

First, all prayer requires faith in God – that he exists, and that he hears and answers prayer. Jesus prayed. You see his great faith most notably in his prayer at Gethsemane. Terrified of the fate he’s believes that God has ordained, yet knowing that God hears and answer his requests, he asks God to be spared. The reader is to infer that either God declined to answer, or he said no, and that Jesus accepts this answer, trusting God. He acts with courage and resolve at his trials.

Second, Hebrews 12 implicitly but very clearly asserts that Jesus is a model of faith for us. And note that it comes and the end of big list of heroes of faith – Jesus is the capstone of that list.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2, NRSV)

He’s the pioneer, the trailblazer whom we are to follow in the path of faith.

Before and while it was occurring, Jesus’s crucifixion seemed like a gigantic, horrible, humiliating, embarrassing, painful loss to Jesus – loss of his life, his ministry, his privacy, his dignity, his family, his friends, his hopes. But he trusted in God through it all, never cursing his fate, his God, or his enemies, but expecting God’s vindication – which at the time was nowhere in sight. Mark 15:34 says that he prays Psalm 22 from the cross. (Read the rest of it.) He must have focused on what he had before heard from God, that he would be raised and exalted on the third day. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46) Those are words of faith. This whole death is the greatest example of faith, not a picture of a being (perfect, self-sufficient God) who has no need of faith. We are to follow Jesus in that sort of faith, which we see the apostles doing, in all but one case, to their own premature death.

I’m sure there are other passages we could discuss as well, like Philippians 2; but it seems to me that these two are sufficient.

----

And here are 5 posts expounding on this subject.
https://trinities.org/blog/?s=%22Did+Je ... +God%3F%22

[dwight92070]

Paidion,

Trust and faith are not the same thing. If they were, you could substitute the word "trust" for every place the scripture uses the word "faith". Let's try a few examples:
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through (trust); and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. ???

Let's use the same book, Hebrews 11:1- Now (trust) is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ???

Romans 10:17 - "So (trust) comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." ???

Acts 6:5 - " ... and they chose Stephen, a man full of (trust) and the Holy Spirit, ..."

None of these work. In each case, the meaning of the verse is totally changed. Try ANY verse, it changes the meaning.

Likewise, in Hebrews 2:13, " ... I will put my trust in Him", does not mean "I will put my (faith) in Him".

The Greek word for "trust" is only used 4 times in the New Testament. The Greek word for "faith" is used 246 times in the New Testament. They are NOT the same word. If the author of Hebrews wanted to convey that Jesus had FAITH in God, he should have used the word FAITH. After all, he DID use the Greek word for FAITH 33 times in his book, but NOT in Hebrews 2:13.

Yes, putting our trust in God is a good thing, but it's NOT the same as putting our FAITH in God.

So, once again, I am still looking for one place where Jesus put His FAITH in God.

[darinhouston]

I think Matthew 23:24 is the most relevant scripture here.

[Otherness]

A recurring theme in the arguments put forth by non-trinitarains is that there is just so much in the New Testament that witnesses to Jesus' distinction from God and His subordination to, and dependence upon, the Father. Of course there is!

Creation is organically (ontologically) distinct from God, and if this is not a fundamental in your theology you have no escape from a pantheistic view of God. When the Word incarnated He literally (ontologically) clothed (Philippians 2:7) Himself with that distinction and subordination that is, vis-a-vis God, native to Creation. This is the spiritual labor, the work, that saves us, that lifts our reality (from below) into the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).

In His Life here with us He lived as one of us and His Spirit absorbed all the reality that any human being must deal with, all the while exposing and subjecting that reality to the Light of Obedience (Faithfulness). This victory of His now infuses our reality and is ministered to us by the Presence of His Spirit in us. The Spirit of Jesus captivates us in our captivity because HIS PRESENCE with(in) us overcomes the reality of the world in us that separates us from God.

This was the Plan (the Logos) in (from) the Beginning...and when the Logos became flesh...He actually became flesh. When our flesh experiences the Spirit of Christ we finally have our deepest, deepest, deepest need met : the Presence of God, Himself, healing our separation from Him. The Life experience of Jesus is (becomes) our ladder to heaven (our transformation from the life of the flesh to the Life of the Spirit).