A question for Trinitarians

Post by **_STEVE7150** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:43 am

If Jesus were God WHILE he was a man then how could he be dead for three days? God is immortal.
He is the Word of God but he humbled himself while he dwelt among us. He was just like us and he did his miracles through being filled with the Holy Spirit and possessing perfected faith.

Post by **_Paidion** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:52 pm

Steve, I think what you said is pretty close to the truth.

However, in divesting Himself of divine attributes, He did retain one essential thing, however, and that was His identity! He was the same Individual while He lived on earth as He was prior to His birth. But He was never God Himself (i.e. the Father) He was the Son of God, Another who was the exact expression of God's essence (or bore the very stamp of God's nature). Heb. 1:3

The above seems to be the Scriptural Christology. And I guess that's why it's always bothered me to hear people say, "God was born as a human being." Steve, just as you indicated that God couldn't be dead for three days, so God couldn't become Jesus during Jesus' life time on earth. If so, whom was Jesus addressing when He was praying?

Post by **_Murf** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 11:44 am

1. If the answer is "yes", then what did He mean by addressing His Father as "the only true God"?

2. If the answer is "no", then what was Jesus' divine status (if any) when He uttered the prayer?

You seem to be limiting God by human logic.

The answer is "yes" because Jesus is giving the Father of his earthly existence the glory He desires and the answer is “no” because He chose to become human as well as divine so His divine nature can correctly accept glory from His human nature.

Post by **_brody_in_ga** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:01 pm

So Pai, is Jesus God in your theology?

Post by **_Paidion** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 2:32 pm

brody wrote:So Pai, is Jesus God in your theology?

I think I answered that question in my last post:

"However, in divesting Himself of divine attributes, He did retain one essential thing, however, and that was His identity! He was the same Individual while He lived on earth as He was prior to His birth. But He was never God Himself (i.e. the Father) He was the Son of God, Another who was the exact expression of God's essence (or bore the very stamp of God's nature). Heb. 1:3"

I'll try to put it another way. If by the word "God" you mean the Father, the Creator of all things, then Jesus is not and never was God. Jesus was not the Creator in spite of the song, "The Great Creator became my Saviour." The Father was Creator, and He created all things through the Son.

But if by "God" you mean "Deity", then of course, Jesus was and is God.
Just as you and I are humanity, Jesus was Deity. Humanity and Deity are two different orders of being. Man begets man, and his offspring is man (humanity). God begets God and his offspring is God (Deity). You have been begotten as a human being. Jesus was begotten as a Divine Being, Another exactly like the Father in essence (bore the very stamp of God's nature). However, He was also begotten as a human being on earth in the womb of Mary, and was therefore a complete human being while on earth, and is now the first resurrected human being (first to receive a true resurrection. Lazarus and others were merely resuscitated. They died again.)

If the words above are still not clear, I just don't know how to clarify them further.

Post by **_brody_in_ga** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 4:14 pm

Paidion wrote:
brody wrote:So Pai, is Jesus God in your theology?
I think I answered that question in my last post:

"However, in divesting Himself of divine attributes, He did retain one essential thing, however, and that was His identity! He was the same Individual while He lived on earth as He was prior to His birth. But He was never God Himself (i.e. the Father) He was the Son of God, Another who was the exact expression of God's essence (or bore the very stamp of God's nature). Heb. 1:3"

I'll try to put it another way. If by the word "God" you mean the Father, the Creator of all things, then Jesus is not and never was God. Jesus was not the Creator in spite of the song, "The Great Creator became my Saviour." The Father was Creator, and He created all things through the Son.

But if by "God" you mean "Deity", then of course, Jesus was and is God.
Just as you and I are humanity, Jesus was Deity. Humanity and Deity are two different orders of being. Man begets man, and his offspring is man (humanity). God begets God and his offspring is God (Deity). You have been begotten as a human being. Jesus was begotten as a Divine Being, Another exactly like the Father in essence (bore the very stamp of God's nature). However, He was also begotten as a human being on earth in the womb of Mary, and was therefore a complete human being while on earth, and is now the first resurrected human being (first to receive a true resurrection. Lazarus and others were merely resuscitated. They died again.)

If the words above are still not clear, I just don't know how to clarify them further.

Let me ask the question another way, has there ever been a time when Jesus did not exist as a person? Was he a created being before the incarnation? By the way, neither myself, nor other trinitarians say that Jesus is the Father, hence the reason we are trinitarians, and not modalist.

Where does the Holy Spirit fit into your view? Is the Spirit God Almighty, or something else?

Post by **_Allyn** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:24 pm

Paidion wrote:
brody wrote:So Pai, is Jesus God in your theology?
I think I answered that question in my last post:

"However, in divesting Himself of divine attributes, He did retain one essential thing, however, and that was His identity! He was the same Individual while He lived on earth as He was prior to His birth. But He was never God Himself (i.e. the Father) He was the Son of God, Another who was the exact expression of God's essence (or bore the very stamp of God's nature). Heb. 1:3"

I'll try to put it another way. If by the word "God" you mean the Father, the Creator of all things, then Jesus is not and never was God. Jesus was not the Creator in spite of the song, "The Great Creator became my Saviour." The Father was Creator, and He created all things through the Son.

But if by "God" you mean "Deity", then of course, Jesus was and is God.
Just as you and I are humanity, Jesus was Deity. Humanity and Deity are two different orders of being. Man begets man, and his offspring is man (humanity). God begets God and his offspring is God (Deity). You have been begotten as a human being. Jesus was begotten as a Divine Being, Another exactly like the Father in essence (bore the very stamp of God's nature). However, He was also begotten as a human being on earth in the womb of Mary, and was therefore a complete human being while on earth, and is now the first resurrected human being (first to receive a true resurrection. Lazarus and others were merely resuscitated. They died again.)

If the words above are still not clear, I just don't know how to clarify them further.

I could not disagree with you more for In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All thing were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. (John1)

Post by **_brody_in_ga** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:31 pm

Pai,

Do you believe in more than one God? Or do you subscribe to the Jehovah Witness Unitarian concepts?

Sorry if I seem to be asking you a lot of questions, I am just curious.

Post by **_Paidion** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:24 pm

brody wrote:Do you believe in more than one God? Or do you subscribe to the Jehovah Witness Unitarian concepts?

Sorry if I seem to be asking you a lot of questions, I am just curious.

No problem! Please feel free to ask me anything you wish.

In order to answer your first question properly, I would have to know what you mean by "more than one God".

It is interesting that the Hebrew word for "God" is "Elohim", a plural word. When God said, "Let's create man in our own image" and "Let us go down and confuse their language", to whom was He speaking? Who was this "us". It sounds like more than one Individual to me.

Jesus said, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." When He said that, He didn't mean that He was the Father. Rather, He meant that as the only-begotten Son, He was Another exactly like the Father. So to know Jesus is to know the Father.

True trinitarians also believe that the Son is a different Individual from the Father, and modalists or "Oneness" believers think Trinitarians believe in three Gods.

Then there are a considerable number of people who think they are Trinitarians, but they are actually modalists, or believers in the "Oneness" of God. They think God is a single Individual who expresses Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

If you consider the polytheism of the Greek gods or the Roman gods, you will notice that those "gods" are not in harmony at all. They actually fight one another, and are jealous of one another.

The Father and the Son, on the other hand, are in perfect harmony.

So I don't believe in two Gods in the sense of two independent Individuals.
I do however, believe in two divine Individuals who are in perfect harmony, the Father being greater than the Son, as Jesus said He was, and that each of these Individuals is equally divine.

In answer to your second question, I affirm that I do not subscribe to Unitarian concepts, at least not as I understand Unitarianism. My understanding of it is that Jesus is not regarded as divine, but as an enlightened man or a man filled with the Spirit of God. I believe Jesus the Son of God to be fully divine.

Post by **_Homer** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:14 am

Paidion wrote:

I'll try to put it another way. If by the word "God" you mean the Father, the Creator of all things, then Jesus is not and never was God. Jesus was not the Creator in spite of the song, "The Great Creator became my Saviour." The Father was Creator, and He created all things through the Son.

Could it be that God created in the same way that it is said Jesus baptized?

John 4:1-2 (New King James Version)
1. Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John 2. (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples),

Paidion also wrote:

True trinitarians also believe that the Son is a different Individual from the Father, and modalists or "Oneness" believers think Trinitarians believe in three Gods.

But who are the "true" trinitarians? Didn't the trinitarians for most of church history see The Father, Son, and Spirit as personae rather than individuals? Contra modern trinitarians who see the three as individuals, and contra modalists who see God as one mode at a time rather than three simultaneously?

Not to further muddy the waters.