Who is the Alpha & Omega?

God, Christ, & The Holy Spirit
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darinhouston
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Re: Who is the Alpha & Omega?

Post by darinhouston » Sat Nov 05, 2022 8:36 am

dwight92070 wrote:
Sat Nov 05, 2022 12:20 am
darinhouston wrote:
Fri Nov 04, 2022 10:50 pm
obvious to you, perhaps, but you have not convinced anyone else. I am not pretending it's not true, but I am asserting that it has not been demonstrated to be so.
I think most people who have concluded from honest Bible study that the Trinity is true, already know the obvious truth of what the Bible says about these titles of God and Jesus. I don't have to convince them. Many of them knew it long before I did. However, it's impossible to convince someone who won't acknowledge the clear, plain, meaning of the Bible words.
Then I guess there's no point discussing it at all. Let's just always believe what most people think about everything then. No need to consider whether it's true and what our reasons are for believing it.

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dwight92070
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Re: Who is the Alpha & Omega?

Post by dwight92070 » Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:01 am

darinhouston wrote:
Sat Nov 05, 2022 8:36 am
dwight92070 wrote:
Sat Nov 05, 2022 12:20 am
darinhouston wrote:
Fri Nov 04, 2022 10:50 pm
obvious to you, perhaps, but you have not convinced anyone else. I am not pretending it's not true, but I am asserting that it has not been demonstrated to be so.
I think most people who have concluded from honest Bible study that the Trinity is true, already know the obvious truth of what the Bible says about these titles of God and Jesus. I don't have to convince them. Many of them knew it long before I did. However, it's impossible to convince someone who won't acknowledge the clear, plain, meaning of the Bible words.
Then I guess there's no point discussing it at all. Let's just always believe what most people think about everything then. No need to consider whether it's true and what our reasons are for believing it.
I think you're right. There's no need to continue this particular discussion with you. When you can't even acknowledge that "the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, and the beginning and the end", as they are used in the Bible, are titles that God and Jesus exclusively use about themselves, then further discussion is useless. I have to correct your 2nd and 3rd sentences, however. Let's just always believe what the Bible says about everything. There's always the need to consider whether some man's interpretation of the Bible is true or not.

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darinhouston
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Re: Who is the Alpha & Omega?

Post by darinhouston » Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:03 am

dwight92070 wrote:
Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:01 am
darinhouston wrote:
Sat Nov 05, 2022 8:36 am
dwight92070 wrote:
Sat Nov 05, 2022 12:20 am


I think most people who have concluded from honest Bible study that the Trinity is true, already know the obvious truth of what the Bible says about these titles of God and Jesus. I don't have to convince them. Many of them knew it long before I did. However, it's impossible to convince someone who won't acknowledge the clear, plain, meaning of the Bible words.
Then I guess there's no point discussing it at all. Let's just always believe what most people think about everything then. No need to consider whether it's true and what our reasons are for believing it.
I think you're right. There's no need to continue this particular discussion with you. When you can't even acknowledge that "the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, and the beginning and the end", as they are used in the Bible, are titles that God and Jesus exclusively use about themselves, then further discussion is useless. I have to correct your 2nd and 3rd sentences, however. Let's just always believe what the Bible says about everything. There's always the need to consider whether some man's interpretation of the Bible is true or not.
Just to clarify - I don't disagree that they are exclusively used in the Bible in reference to Jesus and God, but that doesn't mean they are inherently terms which only apply to Jesus and God and that, therefore, we can imply identity between the two by the common use of the terms.

Otherness
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Re: Who is the Alpha & Omega?

Post by Otherness » Sat Nov 05, 2022 1:26 pm

“...the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God”. (I Corinthians 2: 10 -12).

What follows, here, is a spiritual understanding of the spiritual reality that is presented to us in God's word concerning the spiritual nature of all that exists.

Logic can become a very slithery thing, oozing subtle error, as it snakes its way from thought to thought. It can also be a wild-goose chase if its first principles are not incorruptible, or if it becomes unfaithful to them when they are. Simplicity is logic's best ally as it works its way from Creator to
Creation, Beginning to End, Alpha to Omega, Christ to the Body of Christ.

Before (any act of) creation YHWH is God; God is YHWH. This is the only BEING that (there) IS. Without creation there is NOTHING (and no one) OTHER than God. There is only (an) “I.”

“I” does not exist in a “space” of any kind : HE is a Personal Spirit Being, and there is absolutely no other "anything." This is (the) REALITY from which all other being (all creation) arises : God is fundamental, Creation is emergent, contingent, derivative.

How is it that this NOTHING is THAT from which everything is made...by God expressing His thoughts, viz. speaking words. Everything (absolutely everything) in the Natural World is (in essence) manifest thought, a word. This is the cosmogony and cosmology of Scripture.

This is the Nature of Reality and logic must be very careful how it proceeds, else some form of pantheism will be(come) inescapable if there is not (found), right here, an ontological distinction between God and Creation. Yes, there must be an ontological distinction else there is no organic “separation” of Creator from created (no true distinction between THINKER and His (spoken) thoughts (words).

The Creator NEEDS His Creation to be truly (ontologically) distinct from Him so that “the others” that are brought forth from, and within, it are capable of existing, according to His desire, in a truly loving relationship with Him. They must be truly (ontologically) OTHERS!

Again, there is NOTHING, there is NO THING, there is no SPACE : space is “something” that exists between things (words). There is only the Being of God! There is no “WHERE” for God to speak His words “INTO” that is not His own Being : there is no SPACE within which a distinct Creation can exist.
The spiritual labor here is to stay faithful to first principles : to think logically...spiritually...not carnally (materialistically). Forget the evidence that the “material” world imposes (dictates), through the senses, on the mind because, the truth is, we live, and move, and have our being in [the
manifest thoughts (words) of] God (again, 1 Corinthians 2:10,13).

How is SPACE in (GOD'S) BEING “to be?”

How does God make ROOM in His BEING for Creation? He “provides” Himself this DIMENSION by “choosing” to exist in the creative state we call THE TRINITY. Remember, there is no act of creation “yet.” Rather, YHWH is being Who [What (Exodus 3:14)] He wills to be because this lies within Him in the power of His own Self-Existence (aseity). This Subject / Subject state of His existence generates the Reality of OTHERNESS in His Being, and this is the spiritual ground of the Space in which His (and our) object / object reality exists. The Trinity “allows” (the reality of) OTHERNESS to be AS REAL AS as God is Himself because God – Himself – exists this way : God is OTHER...Himself. This (resultant) distinction / void / emptiness in the Being of God is the (creative) waters of Genesis, and it is here that His expressed thoughts (words) take form (in that PLACE in Him that is not Him). Yes, the Father is NOT the Son; the Son is NOT the Father. It is this NOT-NESS that is the Spiritual Existence of the NOTHING – [science speak uses the term Quantum Vacuum, and sees this as a “nothingness...teeming and roiling with potentiality”] – from (in) which Creation is made.

YHWH has “some particular thing” in mind in His creative endeavor, to wit, the bringing into being of “other being” (children) in His image and likeness. That is, to father sons (/ daughters). The whole of the Cosmos, in its conception, inception, and construction is the means to this end.

To the point : YHWH (as) Creator is (a) Father WITH (a) Son (John 1:1) Who is His Image and Likeness : the Logos (Who is the LOGIC of Creation) Whose Presence ANOINTS the whole created order, thus inexorably determining its outcome. The Alpha (Father / Son) yields the Omega (Father / the Fullness of the Son, His Body). YHWH, in His creative, Trinitarian, State is the Alpha and Omega of Creation.

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dwight92070
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Re: Who is the Alpha & Omega?

Post by dwight92070 » Sat Nov 05, 2022 4:08 pm

Otherness,
That's clear as mud. No one can possibly know the things that you seem to think you know. Your speech comes across like you're high on some kind of drug. You made several "statements" which cannot be verified from the Bible. You seem to think that you're privy to "spiritual" "knowledge" that those of us who talk and think more like the Bible authors, i.e. those of us who use logic and reason - are not privy to. So, since you depart from the sound words of Jesus and the sound doctrine of the Bible, you are deceiving yourself if you think that that kind of 'speech" does anything other than "blowing your own horn" and causing confusion.
"If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, HE IS CONCEITED AND UNDERSTANDS NOTHING;" 1 Timothy 6:3

Otherness
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Re: Who is the Alpha & Omega?

Post by Otherness » Sun Nov 06, 2022 12:45 am

Dwight>>>That's clear as mud. No one can possibly know the things that you seem to think you know. Your speech comes across like you're high on some kind of drug. You made several "statements" which cannot be verified from the Bible. You seem to think that you're privy to "spiritual" "knowledge" that those of us who talk and think more like the Bible authors, i.e. those of us who use logic and reason - are not privy to. So, since you depart from the sound words of Jesus and the sound doctrine of the Bible, you are deceiving yourself if you think that that kind of 'speech" does anything other than "blowing your own horn" and causing confusion. "If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, HE IS CONCEITED AND UNDERSTANDS NOTHING;" 1 Timothy 6:3<<<

Hmm??? Well...let's see.

Ah...Dwight, I'm a human being who loves Jesus. This love started 52 years ago and has steadily matured as He promised it “would.” Sadly, in some (too many) cases, this “would” has to be changed to “could.” The truth of this is so evident in all the division that plague His Kingdom's history right up to today. This legacy has fallen heavily into the laps of us, His disciples, in our times. It is at the heart of the weakness of the Church in its witness to the world about the Truth of Jesus. We simply have not demonstrated that love for each other that convinces the world (John 13:35). We cannot give what we do not have, even if we have all the trappings that go with it (1 Corinthians 13: 1-3).

From the beginning of my witness here on this forum I have stressed that I am coming from, primarily, a Natural Theology perspective on the Trinity. I accept (as a given) that the Scripture reveals God's trinitarian State of Being, and that Steve (and others) have clearly and competently advocated for this revelation. As I said, this is why I know God is Father / Son / Holy Spirit.

Because of the way He has brought me to Himself, because of the interests that have accompanied me on this journey, I have found corroborating evidence in His Creation. This is not surprising, for it is written that “truth shall spring out of the earth” (Psalm 85:11). Though I see this, as first, “hinting” about the Incarnation, nonetheless it also, by implication, says that the natural creation glorifies (and is destined to glorify) God.

We live at a the time when man's search in the natural world for “ultimate truth” is turning him back towards God. I've written of this in my previous posts, using citations from the “brightest lights” in this search. I let the truth that God has written in His natural creation discipline the way I think about it when I am contemplating what He has revealed about it, and Him, in His word. That is, the water of His word (Ephesians 5:26), mixed with the dirt of His earth, is kind of like the mud He applied to the eyes of the man born blind. Don't be so sure that the words, which you call mud, haven't been used by Him to magnify the love in my eyes for Him.

Any “spiritual knowledge” I have is a gift that flows in His blood out of His broken body onto, and into, His Body. As such, it does not produce in me the attitude that you project upon me. Neither does it demonstrate that I have “depart(ed) from the sound words of Jesus and the sound doctrine of the Bible....” Additionally, the only “horn I'm blowing” is the one that calls for the recognition that God's revelation in His word about the true nature of the Natural World testifies to The Trinity.

I invite you to take any statement I have made and demonstrate how, in your estimation, it “advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness...”

May you continually grow, in the Lord's grace, in graciousness.

My handle is “otherness,” my name is John.

My love to you, Dwight, my brother.

dizerner

Re: Who is the Alpha & Omega?

Post by dizerner » Sun Nov 06, 2022 6:13 am

Appreciate your kind demeanor, Other.

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darinhouston
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Re: Who is the Alpha & Omega?

Post by darinhouston » Sun Nov 06, 2022 9:39 am

dizerner wrote:
Sun Nov 06, 2022 6:13 am
Appreciate your kind demeanor, Other.
I agree with this, though I have to agree (in substance at least) with Dwight here - it may just be me, but I find it a bit esoteric and hard to follow - that is not to say it doesn't have value, it's just not based in a rational biblical exegesis from my perspective and so comes at things from a different perspective than I am able to follow very well. That may be a "me" problem.

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dwight92070
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Re: Who is the Alpha & Omega?

Post by dwight92070 » Sun Nov 06, 2022 11:06 pm

Otherness wrote:
Sat Nov 05, 2022 1:26 pm
“...the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God”. (I Corinthians 2: 10 -12).

What follows, here, is a spiritual understanding of the spiritual reality that is presented to us in God's word concerning the spiritual nature of all that exists.

Logic can become a very slithery thing, oozing subtle error, as it snakes its way from thought to thought. It can also be a wild-goose chase if its first principles are not incorruptible, or if it becomes unfaithful to them when they are. Simplicity is logic's best ally as it works its way from Creator to
Creation, Beginning to End, Alpha to Omega, Christ to the Body of Christ.

Dwight - Before I comment on your previous paragraph, I must comment on your latest post, which was your response to my post: Wow, you can actually speak human language. You should try it more often. Regarding the above paragraph: It never ceases to amaze me how some Christians can condemn logic, yet at the same time they are using their logic to even express that opinion! Without logic, each of us would be reduced to a vegetable - maybe alive but totally unable to function without outside help from someone who IS using logic. We see these type of people in mental hospitals and/or in nursing homes. You need logic to survive, just as much as you need air, water, and food. To think otherwise is deception. Of course knowledge can "puff up" and make us proud, but that's why we must walk humbly and seek to walk in the Spirit. But it's foolish to think that all logic is bad or a work of the flesh. Some "logic" can be faulty or based on lies, but there is good logic as well. It's naive to think that we should not use the logic that God has given us. In fact, it's impossible not to. To assume that all logic is like the serpent, the devil, or that all logic will never remain faithful to the incorruptible word of God is, in itself, faulty logic and unbiblical. Those who abide in Christ and continue in his word will use the mind of Christ that He has imparted to us - not perfectly, but more and more as we mature. "Simplicity is logic's best ally?" What scripture tells us that?

Before (any act of) creation YHWH is God; God is YHWH. This is the only BEING that (there) IS. Without creation there is NOTHING (and no one) OTHER than God. There is only (an) “I.”

Dwight - The Bible, and God Himself, calls Him "I am", not "I". Why would you leave that out, when the Bible says it? There is NO "I" in scripture. We are warned in the scripture to never take away from the words of scripture, which you have done - or at the very least misrepresented the word of God.

“I” does not exist in a “space” of any kind : HE is a Personal Spirit Being, and there is absolutely no other "anything." This is (the) REALITY from which all other being (all creation) arises : God is fundamental, Creation is emergent, contingent, derivative.

Dwight - Again, "I" is a misrepresentation of God's name. You say that He "does not exist in a "space" of any kind?" Nobody knows that. You don't know that. The Bible nowhere says that.

How is it that this NOTHING is THAT from which everything is made...by God expressing His thoughts, viz. speaking words. Everything (absolutely everything) in the Natural World is (in essence) manifest thought, a word. This is the cosmogony and cosmology of Scripture.

Dwight - I could be wrong, so correct me if I am - but I don't believe the Bible says that everything was made from NOTHING. Rather it says that everything that is seen was made out of THINGS NOT SEEN. Just because things are not seen, this does not make them NOTHING.



This is the Nature of Reality and logic must be very careful how it proceeds, else some form of pantheism will be(come) inescapable if there is not (found), right here, an ontological distinction between God and Creation. Yes, there must be an ontological distinction else there is no organic “separation” of Creator from created (no true distinction between THINKER and His (spoken) thoughts (words).

The Creator NEEDS His Creation to be truly (ontologically) distinct from Him so that “the others” that are brought forth from, and within, it are capable of existing, according to His desire, in a truly loving relationship with Him. They must be truly (ontologically) OTHERS!

Again, there is NOTHING, there is NO THING, there is no SPACE : space is “something” that exists between things (words). There is only the Being of God! There is no “WHERE” for God to speak His words “INTO” that is not His own Being : there is no SPACE within which a distinct Creation can exist.
The spiritual labor here is to stay faithful to first principles : to think logically...spiritually...not carnally (materialistically). Forget the evidence that the “material” world imposes (dictates), through the senses, on the mind because, the truth is, we live, and move, and have our being in [the
manifest thoughts (words) of] God (again, 1 Corinthians 2:10,13).

Dwight - Your confused logic here is just that - confused and confusing. Also, again, where does the Bible tell us what you just told us in the previous paragraph?

How is SPACE in (GOD'S) BEING “to be?”

How does God make ROOM in His BEING for Creation? He “provides” Himself this DIMENSION by “choosing” to exist in the creative state we call THE TRINITY. Remember, there is no act of creation “yet.” Rather, YHWH is being Who [What (Exodus 3:14)] He wills to be because this lies within Him in the power of His own Self-Existence (aseity). This Subject / Subject state of His existence generates the Reality of OTHERNESS in His Being, and this is the spiritual ground of the Space in which His (and our) object / object reality exists. The Trinity “allows” (the reality of) OTHERNESS to be AS REAL AS as God is Himself because God – Himself – exists this way : God is OTHER...Himself. This (resultant) distinction / void / emptiness in the Being of God is the (creative) waters of Genesis, and it is here that His expressed thoughts (words) take form (in that PLACE in Him that is not Him). Yes, the Father is NOT the Son; the Son is NOT the Father. It is this NOT-NESS that is the Spiritual Existence of the NOTHING – [science speak uses the term Quantum Vacuum, and sees this as a “nothingness...teeming and roiling with potentiality”] – from (in) which Creation is made.

Dwight - For this paragraph, you must have taken two or three long draws of weed, or something stronger, before you could come up with this. This one is really out there in la-la land!

YHWH has “some particular thing” in mind in His creative endeavor, to wit, the bringing into being of “other being” (children) in His image and likeness. That is, to father sons (/ daughters). The whole of the Cosmos, in its conception, inception, and construction is the means to this end.

To the point : YHWH (as) Creator is (a) Father WITH (a) Son (John 1:1) Who is His Image and Likeness : the Logos (Who is the LOGIC of Creation) Whose Presence ANOINTS the whole created order, thus inexorably determining its outcome. The Alpha (Father / Son) yields the Omega (Father / the Fullness of the Son, His Body). YHWH, in His creative, Trinitarian, State is the Alpha and Omega of Creation.
Dwight - Are we done yet? It's time for you to come back down from your mystical state and start speaking human again.

Dwight - Colossians 4:3-4 - " ... pray(ing) for us ... so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, ... THAT I MAY MAKE IT CLEAR IN THE WAY I OUGHT TO SPEAK.

Dwight - Your goal and mine should be, as it was for Paul, to speak the gospel and the things of Christ IN AS CLEAR A MANNER AS WE ARE ABLE TO. Your language above is not even close to being clear, and in some places, it actually contradicts the scripture, or adds to it, or takes away from it.

Otherness
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Re: Who is the Alpha & Omega?

Post by Otherness » Mon Nov 07, 2022 4:39 pm

Before I say anything regarding these latest replies, I just want to point out that, for the most part, I've been very careful in trying to avoid writing in the “first / second person “ style. As much as possible I've avoided even the “third person” perspective, preferring the technique of objective writing in the hope that I'm demonstrating the respect (that I have) for other points of view. Well, I kinda have to abandon that method for now to help keep this at the kerfuffle level.

Dizerner>>>Appreciate your kind demeanor<<<
Thank you Dizerner, kindness is an organic fruit when (if) the soul is nourished by the Bread of Life. I expect you're not as “put off” by my “contributions” as some, inasmuch as you identify as a “Classical Arminian Christian Mystic.”

Darinhouston>>>I agree with this, though I have to agree (in substance at least) with Dwight here - it may just be me, but I find it a bit esoteric and hard to follow - that is not to say it doesn't have value, it's just not based in a rational biblical exegesis from my perspective and so comes at things from a different perspective than I am able to follow very well. That may be a "me" problem.<<<

It isn't just you. It was hard for me to see the dots, from above and below, connected as I do. Then it was even harder to put the insights into words. I was content for decades not saying anything along the lines of what I have posted here. But the fruit of this intimacy with God that I enjoy knowing His Presence and His Absence are really, essentially, the same thing, well...I'm just trying to share. If we can love Him as much in His Absence as in His Presence, we can then love each other as He wants us to whether the “other” knows His Presence (very well) or not (at all). If we can love those who know Him not (His enemies), then what (unconditional) love it is that we must have for each other, those of us who love Him.

I, of course, disagree that what I share is (your words) “not based in a rational biblical exegesis,” and I invite you, as I did Dwight, to challenge anything I write from that perspective. Any “commentary” on what the Bible teaches is going to draw from other sources while exegeting the height, depth, breath, and length of the wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ. I do see (much of) the knowledge and wisdom He has hidden in His Natural Creation, inasmuch as He is the source and purpose of all Creation (Colossians 1:16).

Dwight>>>Are we done yet? It's time for you to come back down from your mystical state and start speaking human again. Colossians 4:3-4 - " ... pray(ing) for us ... so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, ... THAT I MAY MAKE IT CLEAR IN THE WAY I OUGHT TO SPEAK. Your goal and mine should be, as it was for Paul, to speak the gospel and the things of Christ IN AS CLEAR A MANNER AS WE ARE ABLE TO. Your language above is not even close to being clear, and in some places, it actually contradicts the scripture, or adds to it, or takes away from it.<<<

You certainly are a “prickly pear” my dear brother, Dwight. I note from your picture that you are an “old guy” like me, and I think I remember from one of your posts that you came to the Lord in the “70's.” How so prickly still? Thinking the best of you (as intimacy with the Lord causes) I do expect that it comes from a heartfelt zeal to “defend the faith,” but remember that the purpose of this faith (that has once been delivered to us) is to yield an unfeigned love of the brethern (1 Peter 1:22).

I have been on this forum for 5 years, and over that time I've posted but 53 times, less than once a month on average. You can't say I've been thumping people over the head with “my version of the Bible.” I'm here to share my life with Jesus, and I put no constraints on, nor wish to confine, others regarding what they have to say about their lives with Him.

Ok, so...you've got some pretty prickly words (among others) for me here : “Your language above is not even close to being clear, and in some places, it actually contradicts the scripture, or adds to it, or takes away from it.”

That is your judgment, but be careful...because if you do not even understand what I am saying to begin with you ought not jump to conclusions (confusions) that you cannot justify by Scripture. That is, as I said in my last post, I invite you (and you almost owe it to me as I am a member of the same Body) to be more precise by linking your judgments with the scriptures you have in mind.

Peace be with us all.

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