Jesus is God

God, Christ, & The Holy Spirit
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Paidion
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by Paidion » Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:18 pm

I wrote: "I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End" is found ONLY in the New Testament.
We know, of course, that these words were spoken by Jesus and no other.
Dwight, this was a BIG booboo on my part. We do NOT know that these words were spoken by Jesus.

These words are found ONLY in the book of Revelation.

There was much dispute about the book of Revelation in the early church. It was the last book of the Bible to be accepted as part of the Christian canon of Scripture. In the Eastern branch of the Church, distrust of Revelation persisted until the 15th century.

Early church tradition puts the time that the book was written as being at the end of Domitian's reign. That would be A.D. 96. Though early church tradition also assigns the authorship to the apostle John, it is unlikely that John would have been still alive at that date.

Another factor to be noted, is that the author of Revelation states 4 times in the book that his name is “John.” Rev 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8.

However, in the two books known to have been written by the apostle John, that is, the gospel of John and 1 John, John never claimed to be the author. And the author of 2 and 3 John refers to himself simply as “the elder.” The word “John” does not occur even once in 1, 2, or 3 John.
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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darinhouston
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by darinhouston » Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:59 pm

From the Revised English Version notes:
The phrase “the Alpha and the Omega,” has caused many people to believe this verse refers to Christ. However, study of the occurrences of the phrase indicates that the title “Alpha and Omega” applies to both God and Christ. Scholars are not completely sure what the phrase “the Alpha and the Omega” means. Lenski (The Interpretation of St. John’s Revelation) concludes, “It is fruitless to search Jewish and pagan literature for the source of something that resembles this name Alpha and Omega. Nowhere is a person, to say nothing of a divine Person, called ‘Alpha and Omega,’ or in Hebrew, ‘Aleph and Tau.’”

Although there is no evidence from the historical sources that anyone is named “the Alpha and Omega,” Bullinger (Commentary on Revelation) says that the phrase “is a Hebraism, in common use among the ancient Jewish Commentators to designate the whole of anything from the beginning to the end; e.g., ‘Adam transgressed the whole law from Aleph to Tau’ (Jalk. Reub., fol. 17.4).” That would make the expression the figure of speech, polarmerismos, similar to ‘and there was evening, and there was morning,” which stands for the whole day, in Genesis 1. The best scholarly minds have concluded that the phrase has something to do with starting and finishing something, or the entirety of something. Norton writes that these words, “denote the certain accomplishment of his purposes; that what he has begun he will carry on to its consummation” (A Statement of Reasons for Not Believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians; 1877, pp. 479, 480).

Since both God and Jesus Christ are “the Alpha and the Omega” in their own respective ways, there is good reason to believe that the title can apply to both of them, and no good reason why this title makes the two into “one God.” The titles “Lord” (see Rom. 10:9 above), “Savior” (see Luke 1:47 above) and “king of kings (see 1 Tim. 6:14-16 above) apply to both God and Christ, as well as to other men. As with “Lord,” “Savior” and “King of kings,” this title fits them both. God is truly the beginning and the end of all things, while Christ is the beginning and the end because he is the firstborn from the dead, the Author and Finisher of faith, the Man by whom God will judge the world, and the creator of the new ages to come (see Heb. 1:10 above).

commonsense
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by commonsense » Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:17 am

darinhouston wrote:
Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:59 pm
God is truly the beginning and the end of all things, while Christ is the beginning and the end because he is the firstborn from the dead, the Author and Finisher of faith, the Man by whom God will judge the world, and the creator of the new ages to come (see Heb. 1:10 above).
God judges the world by His law( His word) which is to love others as ourselves. Jesus represents this word.
" If anyone puts My words into practice, he will be like a wise man who builds his house upon a Rock.

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Sun Jul 25, 2021 9:31 am

Psalm 107:28-29 "Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distresses. He caused the storm to be still, so that the waves of the sea were hushed."

How is it possible that Jesus did what only God can do? Matthew 8:26

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Wed Aug 04, 2021 9:33 am

The greatest commandment is:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Now let's look at how much we are to love Jesus:

Luke 14:26 - "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate (by comparison of his love for Me) his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple."

Jesus demands the SAME devotion to Him, as God demands that we give to Him.

Jesus is saying that HE IS GOD.

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darinhouston
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by darinhouston » Wed Aug 04, 2021 10:25 am

dwight92070 wrote:
Sun Jul 25, 2021 9:31 am
Psalm 107:28-29 "Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distresses. He caused the storm to be still, so that the waves of the sea were hushed."

How is it possible that Jesus did what only God can do? Matthew 8:26
As Isaiah predicted, because the Spirit was upon Him. Many of the miracles were done likewise by Apostles - again, through the power of God and with the authority of God. I do not believe there is anything only God can do because I believe He can (and has) authorized and empowered others to do things that "otherwise" God could only do.

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Wed Aug 04, 2021 12:37 pm

I have been in Christian "circles" since 1970, and I have never seen a Christian perform one miracle, or even heard of one, THAT WAS FULLY DOCUMENTED, much less stop the wind and calm the sea. I've been to meetings with Kathryn Kuhlman, Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Morris Curillo (sp?), Marilyn Hickey, Ern Baxter, and many others less well-known, and supposedly, healings were happening, but nothing was ever confirmed.
By the way, I don't recommend any of those people, and I believe that many of them were false teachers.

I DO believe in miracles, but I've never seen one. Have you? It's worth noting that just about ALL of Jesus' miracles were visible to everyone, easy to verify. Also they were INSTANTANEOUS, which is, I would think, a requirement to even be called a miracle.

Have you seen someone raise the dead? Calm a storm? Ascend to heaven? Heal the blind, or the deaf? Cast out demons? The fact that Jesus did ALL of these AT WILL, WITH HIS OWN POWER proves that He is God. No other person in history performed the number of miracles that HE did. Even the apostles performed miracles IN HIS NAME. Jesus simply COMMANDED MIRACLES AND THEY HAPPENED.

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darinhouston
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by darinhouston » Wed Aug 04, 2021 2:55 pm

dwight92070 wrote:
Wed Aug 04, 2021 12:37 pm
I have been in Christian "circles" since 1970, and I have never seen a Christian perform one miracle, or even heard of one, THAT WAS FULLY DOCUMENTED, much less stop the wind and calm the sea. I've been to meetings with Kathryn Kuhlman, Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Morris Curillo (sp?), Marilyn Hickey, Ern Baxter, and many others less well-known, and supposedly, healings were happening, but nothing was ever confirmed.
By the way, I don't recommend any of those people, and I believe that many of them were false teachers.

I DO believe in miracles, but I've never seen one. Have you? It's worth noting that just about ALL of Jesus' miracles were visible to everyone, easy to verify. Also they were INSTANTANEOUS, which is, I would think, a requirement to even be called a miracle.

Have you seen someone raise the dead? Calm a storm? Ascend to heaven? Heal the blind, or the deaf? Cast out demons? The fact that Jesus did ALL of these AT WILL, WITH HIS OWN POWER proves that He is God. No other person in history performed the number of miracles that HE did. Even the apostles performed miracles IN HIS NAME. Jesus simply COMMANDED MIRACLES AND THEY HAPPENED.
I think you misunderstood my point. I was speaking only of his Apostles, which yes were granted these and they performed them in his name. But the same is true of Jesus - he did them in the power of the spirit and did everything in the name and to the glory of his father. Even most Trinitarians believe this because they believe the kenosis theory required it since he had not retained his inherent powers. If this is true, then using powers can't be a proof of his divinity since that prerogative was supposedly given up. They were proof of his Messiahship but not necessarily his divinity. He was simply not acting in his own power - that doesn't negate the Trinity, but certainly doesn't prove it.

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Wed Aug 11, 2021 8:44 am

This is interesting how Paul equates Jesus with God:

Isaiah 45:23 - "I have sworn by Myself ... that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance."

Philippians 2:10 - "... so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord ..."

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Thu Aug 12, 2021 8:18 am

Micah 5:2 - "But as for you, Bethlehem ... from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity."

Micah is telling us that Jesus is eternal, as only God is. He not only pre-existed but He existed in eternity.

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