Shema Yisrael

[Jill]

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[Pierac]

It is true that the Father is the "only true God", yet one must be careful to understand that the ONLY Individual begotten by God before all ages, is of the same essence as the only true God.

He reflects the glory of God and is the exact expression of His essence... Hebrews 1:3

The ESV renders it "the exact imprint of his nature". Thus Jesus was able to say to Philip, "He who has seen me has seen the Father."

He is an analogy which might help. From my pocket I pull out a picture of myself, and show it to you. Then I say, "I want to show you another picture". Then I take out another print of the same picture. You might reply, "That's the same picture!" But I tell you, "How can it be the same picture? I showed you the first picture, and now I showed you the second. They are two different pictures!" So who is right? Both of us are, depending upon what we mean by "the same picture" or "a different picture". Even if you have seen the only the first picture, then you have, in effect, also seen the second.

In a similar way, the Father and the Son are "the same God" and yet are two different divine Individuals and so are in that sense are "two Gods". They are equally divine, but two different Individuals. However, as Jesus affirmed, "The Father is greater than I." For the Father was the source of all things, including the Son. The Son was begotten, but the Father is unbegotten.

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was Deity. John 1:1

OK, first we must agree on definitions. So let’s go to the Webster’s 1828 dictionary!

Begot
BEGOT', BEGOT'TEN, pp. of get. Procreated; generated.

Begotten
BEGOT', BEGOT'TEN, pp. of get. Procreated; generated.

I think most would accept that “eternally begotten” is actually a oxymoron!

So how easily are you impressed? If I said that my car was an exact imprint of a Mercedes would you be impressed? With a picture or not? Some how, I don’t think so! Yet, Jesus is the image of the invisible God! But not the actual invisible God Himself! This is why He (Jesus) claims to have a God both before and after His resurrection!

The scriptures teach that there is only ONE God!

Mar 12:28 One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, "What commandment is the foremost of all?" 29 Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD;

See John 17:3 as to whom Jesus himself teaches is the "one true God"!


Paul

[Jill]

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[Pierac]

I agree... That Jesus Christ, the Son of the one true living God, sent, is in the express image of the one true living God Himself, who is God the Father. It is not written that Jesus Christ is God the Father Himself. That Jesus testifies of His Father in Heaven throughout this sola scriptura, the Father being the one true Eternal God, and Jesus Christ His Son, of the one true living God, "our Father who art in Heaven", I feel, does not contradict.

That Jesus Christ has now become a life giving spirit however Paidion has also brought up. This is a problem for the witness of Jesus Christ, and him raised. Jesus Christ is in form as a fully Resurrected Glorified Man. I would say that the form of God at Pentecost would be more accurately said to be the Holy Ghost, or the Spirit of God, or the Spirit of Christ, or the essence of Christ, and not the express Image, nor the Man of Christ Himself disintigrated now into some misty moist cloud, nor God Himself. The very living one true God, the Father of all things that are, God- the Father in Heaven of Jesus Christ, that even Jesus Christ himself is trying to get us all to worship, in Spirit and in Truth, God the Eternal Father and not himself, and not man, but God.
(edit:punctuation,wordiness)

Thank you for sharing Karen,

Your thoughs and input are important to me. The question is... Can their be TWO GODS?

We know from the start of Judaism and later Christianity, the most famous aspect and unique characteristic of the two religions is the fact that they were, and still are monotheistic. Christianity is really the continuation of Judaism. Both religions believe in one, and only one unbegotten God, creator of the universe. There are no other gods in these two faiths.

Isaiah 44:6 – "Thus says the LORD... there is no God but me."

Isaiah 45:5 – "I am the LORD and there is no other, there is no God besides me."

Isaiah 45:6 – "Men may know that there is none besides me. I am the LORD, there is no other."

No one will contest that to a Jew or a Christian, there is only one God. Anything else would simply be considered polytheism. The majority of Christianity believes in one God, but a God that is plural in makeup. There are three persons that constitute this one God. They are three, but yet, they are still all the one God. There is: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

In this post we will be concerned primarily with Trinitarian Christianity’s view of God. Specifically, God the Son.

We all know that God the Son has a Father (God the Father). But the question that must be asked and answered is: can God the Son have a God? Every pastor that I have ever asked this question to has always said "Of course not!" But is that the answer given in Scripture? No, on the contrary. As you will see, the prophesied Messiah in the Old Testament is said to have a God. Then you will see that Jesus the Messiah fulfills those prophesies because he most definitely has a God. If you come to the conclusion that Jesus has a God, then it might be time to rethink and research the Doctrine of the Trinity. Because if God the Son has a God, then there are TWO GODS!

To make this as simple as possible, I am not going to list the huge amount of Scriptures which have God (not "Father") and Jesus in the same sentence, or Scriptures that have God speaking to Jesus, or Jesus speaking to God. We will only be concerned with Scriptures that prove that Jesus has a God.

OLD TESTAMENT MESSIANIC PROPHESIES

Psalm 89:26-28 – "He (the Messiah) shall say of me. "You are my father, my God, my rock, my savior". And I will make him the firstborn."

Micah 5:3-4 – "He (the Messiah) shall stand firm and shepherd his flock by the strength of the LORD, in the Majestic name of the LORD, his God."

Psalm 22:10-11 – "To you I was committed at birth. From my mother’s womb you are my God."

NEW TESTAMENT

Jesus Speaking:
John 20:17 – "I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

Matthew 27:46 – "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

Revelation 3:12 – "Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of [b my God[/b]. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God."

Revelation 3:2 – "for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God."


Paul:
Ephesians 1:3 – "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Ephesians 1:17 – "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father..."

2 Corinthians 1:3 – "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

2 Corinthians 11:31 – "The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ knows, He who is blessed forever, that I do not lie."

Romans 15:6 – "that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."


Peter:
1 Peter 1:3 – "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."


John:
Revelation 1:6 – "To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father."

When one reads the preceding verses, there is one thing that is a fact. That Jesus Christ has a God. Jesus speaks of his God, Peter Paul and John mention the God of Jesus Christ. Are they all mistaken? Are we to believe that all these verses are misprints? Are we to suppose that theologians several centuries after Christ knew more about Jesus than Jesus and his Apostles? There is no way around it.

The New American Bible (a Roman Catholic Bible) in a section discussing biblical revelation says,

"It is the very same God who reveals Himself in so many richly divergent ways on every page of the Scriptures. The God of Abraham and Moses and David is the God of Jesus of Nazareth."

Everyone in Jesus’ day knew that Jesus had a God. Even later, people in Rome who did not believe in Jesus knew that he had a God.

So why do we never hear a sermon or anything else on the God of Jesus Christ?
The reason is that people who believe in the Trinity cannot explain this obvious fact. They have absolutely no explanation for it. They claim that God the Son cannot have a God because that would mean that there are two Gods. But there it is in black and white. Jesus has a God. Are you going to take man’s word over God’s word?

Hopefully not. If Jesus has a God, there is absolutely no way that the Doctrine of the Trinity can stand without violating the most basic principle of Christianity; that there is only ONE God!

So does that make Trinitarians and anyone else who thinks that Jesus is God polytheists? It sure does! One God plus One God equals TWO GODS.

"Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ" (John 17:3). Jesus’ own words. God bless you Karen!


Paul

[Jill]

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[Pierac]

No. There are not two "God"s. The Son JHVH, who became Jesus Christ, would be the first to agree:

"Only One is good, and that One is God".

God- the Father in Heaven of Jesus Christ, is that One true living God. And that God is just One God. In the book of Mark- The One God of us all.

Hi Karen,

No One but God is Good

One day a "rich young ruler" came to Jesus and asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 18:18). Jesus replied, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone" (v. 19). The traditional explanation I was taught is that Jesus stops this young man right in his tracks because he needed to realize that Jesus really was God. It is as if Jesus said, "Don't you realize who I am? I am God Himself. Don't call me ‘good’ without remembering this. Recognize who it is you are talking to!" Sound a bit strained? Whilst admitting that Jesus’ reply is difficult I think there's a better explanation. Jesus was saying that he himself is not God. This is the natural, obvious sense so let's look at it in more detail.

The word for "good" here is the Greek word agathos. It is an adjective which according to the G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek lexicon of the New Testament, third edition. Agathos properly refers to "inner excellence." In Joseph Henry Thayer’s, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, agathos when used of God refers to the fact that He is completely, perfectly, and essentially good.

Jesus says that only God is agathos or good. It refers to God's holiness, his "otherness," that which sets Him apart from all of His creation. On the practical level it means that God cannot help being good, God cannot sin, nor can He even be tempted to sin. God alone is "incorruptible" and immortal (1 Tim 1:17).

On the other hand, Jesus reject for himself the description agathos, that inner quality of perfection which belongs only to God. "In essence he rejects this divine attribute of holiness and, on the negative side, he rejects incorruptibility." This means that Jesus was a real human being and had the option of being either good or bad. Jesus’ temptations were real; he could have succumbed and failed. For he was not agathos, that is not good, and not God in the absolute sense of the word. This means that he was liable to corruption (Acts 2:27). But it also means his victories were real. The Bible teaches that Jesus learned obedience (Heb.5:8). God the Father has never had to learn goodness.

Truly, there was a certain goodness that Jesus did possess. His was a goodness unique in human history. We know that he "increased [grew] in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and with man" (Luke 2:52). This was the sinless goodness that had been possible for Adam, originally. This is the goodness that qualified him to be the Good Shepherd who gave his life as a sacrifice for us. But the word describing him as "The Good Shepherd" (John 10:11) is a different Greek word, kalos, meaning morally excellent and worthy of recognition. This type of goodness certainly describes our Savior.

So what does this all mean? Evidently when the young man addressed Jesus as "Good Teacher" Jesus took offense. His response indicates a rebuke in fact: "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." (This crucial phrase ei me heis ho theos may also be translated "but the one God," which is a strong unitary monotheistic affirmation from Jesus’ lips: "no one is good but the one God.")

The Trinitarian Raymond E. Brown in his book, An Introduction to New Testament Christology writes, "The text strongly distinguishes between Jesus and God, and that a description of himself to which Jesus objected was applicable to God. From this text, one would never suspect that the evangelist referred to Jesus and God."

Surely we do not honor the Lord Jesus when we attribute to him what he himself rejected and what belongs only to his Father in heaven? If confirmation that this is the correct interpretation is sought, and we need only to turn to revelations 15. After his resurrection and ascension into heaven Jesus is seen leading the worship directed to God his Father. All the victorious Saints of God singing "the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the lamb, saying, ‘Great and marvelous are Your works, O LORD God, the Almighty… Who will not fear, O LORD and glorify Your Name? For You alone are Holy" (v. 3-4). Even now in heaven the Lord Jesus’ confession is that his Father "alone" is holy. As the lamb of God, Jesus still worships God his Father as the only one who is good! Only his Father, the Lord God Almighty, is the source of all moral excellence. How much better to agree with our Lord Jesus and confess that there is only one who is good, that is God. Jesus rejects the identification of himself with the one true and good God in Luke 18:19.

Paul

[Jill]

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[Pierac]

I do not believe that there are two Gods. This may be Kaufmannphillips proof text. Jesus, who was JHVH, introduces us to God, and the way back to God through him, Jesus Christ.

Yes and no. Jesus was never JHVH but a man...who spoke and heard from God!

John 8:40 "But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do

Act 2:22 "Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know

1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus

Karen, Paul wrote 1Ti 2:5 many decades after Jesus' death and resurrection. And Paul still refers to Jesus as a man even in His risen state, as our mediator!

So how did Jesus become God? Not by any Hebrew that's for sure! Note Karen, Jesus healed the sick, fed thousands off of a single fish lunch and cast out demons. Jesus even raised the dead after 4 days in the grave! Yet not once did any Jew ever think or believe Jesus was God! How could this be? Karen scripture shows us the Hebrew mind compared to the Greek mind.

Hebrew way of thinking...

John 3:1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; 3:2 this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."

Greek way of thinking...

Act 28:3 But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand... Act 28:6 But they were expecting that he was about to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.

Act 14:8 Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well,
10 said in a loud voice, "Stand upright on your feet." And he sprang up and began walking. 11 And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, "The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!" 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. 13 And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds.

Jesus was never believed or made to be God until Christianity began to spread out side of Israel. This is why it took hunderds of years to formulate the concept of the Trinity to our modern understanding. In doing so we ignore Jesus own words... John 8:40 "But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do

Who do you chose to believe Jesus or your tradition? Now read John 17:1-3 again, and then focus on verse 3!

Peace sister,
Paul

[Pierac]

WAS JESUS REALLY TEMPTED?

Of course he was. We are all familiar with the temptation of Jesus, but have most of us noticed how the temptation of Jesus makes the trinity an impossibility.

Matthew 4:1
"Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil."

James 1:13
"For God cannot be tempted by evil."

First, we see that Jesus is led by the Spirit into the desert. The Doctrine of the Trinity says that the three persons of the trinity are equal. If Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the same being and are equal, why does Jesus have to be led into the desert? Does the Spirit know something that Jesus does not?

Secondly, we see the most obvious, Jesus is tempted, yet James clearly says that God cannot be tempted. So is James a liar, or are the man made creeds in error?

Matthew 4:5
"If you are the Son of God throw yourself down, For it is written: He will command His angels concerning you, and with their hands they will support you...Jesus answered him, Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord, your God to the test."

Notice that the devil calls him the Son of God not God. Satan knows God (read Job 1:6) yet he does not address Jesus as God but as the Son of God. Then Satan talks to Jesus about how God will save him if he jumps down. Jesus replies by saying, "You shall not put the Lord, your God to the test." Do you really believe that Jesus is referring to himself?

Matthew 4:8-11
"Then the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, All these I will give to you if you will prostrate yourself and worship me." At this Jesus said to him, "Get away Satan! It is written: The Lord, your God, shall you worship and Him alone shall you serve."

Why would the devil offer God things that are already His?
Psalm 24:1 says:
"The earth is the LORD's and all it holds, the world and those who live there."

Even harder to believe is the idea that the devil really expected God to worship him so that he could give God what is His already. This is ridiculous. Then Jesus replies by saying, "The Lord, your God, shall you worship and Him alone shall you serve." Can you honestly read this and believe that Jesus is talking about himself?

The temptation episode is written to show us how Jesus put his faith in God in front of everything, especially the desires of the flesh (i.e. hunger, power). It shows us that it is possible to live a life in perfect accordance to God's will. He is our role model. This is why he was made just like us. The Bible says that he was made like us in every way.

Hebrews 2:17 says:
"For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God."

(above) Jesus is going to serve God? I thought he was God? Back to Hebrews, Jesus is made in every way like his brothers. Well, then either Jesus is not God but His anointed, or I am God also.

If Jesus is God, then this whole temptation episode is a farce. God cannot expect me to live up to Jesus' standards like the Bible says I should when I am not a Godman like Jesus. The whole purpose of this episode was for Jesus to set the standard, the example of faith and conduct for us to follow. If it takes being God to accomplish this then why even bother?

The creeds say that Jesus was tempted but cannot sin. If you cannot sin, are you really being tempted? The dual nature idea does not remedy the problem either because the Chalcedon Creed which is the one that says that Jesus is fully God and fully man also says that the dual natures are not separable, they are indivisible, united at all times. By the way, this idea of dual natures is called Dualism and it comes from Greek philosophy.

Dualism - The view that reality may be divided into two essential forces. There are two forms of this understanding. From a cosmic perspective, the world struggles between two opposing forces - typically, one of evil and one of good. From a philosophical approach, the essence of a person is divided between two incompatible natures - that of the body and that of the soul. Early Christianity incorporated both views from those religions and philosophies with which it came in contact. This is the same concept used not only in Greek philosophy, but also in Greek mythology. Hercules is the son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. He had a dual nature, he was a man that had supernatural strength which he had inherited from his father Zeus. The Pharaohs were godmen and so were the Caesars. The Bible even provides us with an example of this belief in Acts 14:11 when God healed a crippled man through Paul and Barnabas:

"When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they cried out in Lycaonian, "The gods have come down to us in human form."

This idea of gods coming in human form was very prevalent throughout the Roman-Greco world. This is why it was so natural for people educated in Greek philosophies to incorporate this idea into Christianity.

Please try to read the Bible without injecting meanings that were never intended by its author. It's not easy!

God bless you, and may He always show you the way.


Paul

[Jill]

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