So its been a few months since the last post but I'd thought that I would post something about the Deity of the Son and the reality of the Triune God since it has apt meaning to me coming from a unitarian upbringing as one of Jehovah's Witnesses and now am staunchly Christian. Some basic Scriptures I like to read when researching this or speaking with someone about this topic are: Genesis 1:26; Isaiah 9:6; Micah 5:2; Zechariah 12:10; John 1:1; John 5:19-23; John 8:58 in conjunction with Isaiah 43:10. And there are loads more. But the gist of these verses are that Jesus is God the Son. Now, my basic formula for showing through Scripture and logic that the Trinity is true is thus: There are three pillars of the Trinity that we must hold to. If any of these are defeated then the Trinity is false. But if they are true then we must hold to the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. The pillars are: 1. There is only one God. This is monotheism and I would argue from many passages of Scripture that this is true. Deut. 6:4; Isaiah 43:10;44:6. And many more. Most Christians would agree on this. But it is fundamental to the Trinity, strict Monotheism. 2. There are three Persons called God and given the attributes only God could have. No one questions the Father so we can usually skip over proving the Father is the God of the Bible. The Son is usually the hard one for nontrinitarians to get. Using the passages above that I quoted when talking about the Deity of Jesus, I will mainly focus in on John 1 and Hebrews 1, which seem the most powerful and including John 20:28 where Thomas calls our Lord, " My Lord and my God!" Using these I can show that Jesus is called God many times and given divine titles such as Master, Lord, I Am, God, Lord of the Sabbath, etc. This is to me obvious of the reality that Jesus Christ is God. Next is the Holy Spirit. Using passages such as Psalm 139:7-12; Acts 5:4-5; and pointing out passages where the Spirit is shown to be a person, such as John 16 where Jesus sends the Spirit of Truth, WHO will lead you into all truth. Also, I use passages that show that the Holy Spirit teaches, guides, grieves, can be lied too, can be blasphemed, and so forth show personality. Therefore, the Holy Spirit must be a Person, and must be God since He is God's Spirit and is omnipresent and is omniscient since the Spirit knows the mind of God (1 Cor. 2:11) In conclusion on this pillar, we see that three Persons are called God and given the attributes of God. 3. The final pillar is vital to avoid modalism. It is that the three Persons are not each other but separate Persons. This is clear in the fact the Son prays to the Father and send the Holy Spirit. We see this most resolutely in the Baptism of our Lord, where the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove and the Father declares that Jesus is His Beloved. We also read this in 2 Cor. 13:14- "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." We quote this constantly in Anglican Prayer which I am very grateful for. So, we see it's obvious that the three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are separate in Personhood. Using these three pillars of the Trinity, the Trinity becomes obvious and explicit in Scripture. Not to mention how saturated the Church Fathers are in Trinitarian theology and terms to show that the Tradition of the Church is staunchly Trinitarian. But that is my typical way of explaining the Trinity. And I hope anyone reading is bless by it. Blessings
Hey even I agree that the scriptures lead to the Trinity theory. The basic conceptual problem with the theory for non Christians is that unlike all other gods the Chistian God seems complicated unlike Zeus or Thor for example. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god. Just my little "in house" joke for Thomist Anglican. This is no doubt true but as I have pointed out before Jesus doesn't know when he will return and says only his father knows. This same father who is equal in every way to Jesus acording to the trinity theory. So why doesn't Jesus know when he will return?
Jesus said that when he was incarnate as a human being on earth. Human beings on earth do not know the mind of God for all future events, only the will of God for now. Jesus knew that and did it, which is more than can be said for anyone else on earth. .
That little JW New World Translation joke was good. Got a laugh outta me. But I understand how the God of Christianity is more complicated than the Norse gods or Greek gods. But that makes sense. Since the Christian God is infinite, eternal, almighty, omniscient, omnipresent, and absolutely simple in being (not composed of parts), then it would make sense that He would be the most complicated Being in existence. A simple more human god is no god at all in my opinion. So I don't really see a conceptual problem with the Christian God but that the Christian God answers the problems one may have with other gods. Now, onto the Jesus not knowing the day or the hour. This was answered before I believe, but I'll answer it again. In the incarnate Son, there are two natures, one Divine and one human. These two natures are not the same or combined into some new nature, but two separate natures united in the Person of the Son. So, there are things the divine nature can do and know that the human nature can't. For instance, the divine can uphold the universe while the human can't. So, when Jesus is speaking here about no one knowing the hour but the Father, this is Jesus speaking from his human nature and will not from His divine, which He is able to do. Now, the resurrected Jesus is different compared to us and can do more than we in His human nature but that is a different discussion. But simply said, that moment Jesus is speaking as a human from His human nature and not from His divine nature. In His resurrected body He does know the day and the hour, for Peter said: "Lord, you know all things." (John 21:17). But we need to get a proper understanding of the two natures of Christ do fully understand this. One other thing to consider to is in that passage would we say the Holy Spirit doesn't know the day or the hour? To be consistent with Scripture we must say that the Spirit does know, for Scripture is clear in saying that the Holy Spirit knows the mind of God.(1Cor. 2:11) Also, with the combined testimony of Scripture, we can't cherry pick a verse and say this disproves it. Instead, we need to find a way to harmonize the entirety of it. And the hypostatic union does this.
When men make up a god, the god tends to reflect the attributes and the relative simplicity of the men who thought it up. When you find a god who is difficult to fathom, whose nature defies man's ability to fully comprehend (let alone devise), perhaps you have found the genuine Creator of all things.
If Jesus didn't know when he was to return because he was a human being on earth, how then was he able to forgive sins? So are you saying Jesus can pick and chose which part of his nature to use? Ahh so this must be where Joseph Smith got the idea that the Holy Ghost was the mind of God, and flirted with the idea in his Lectures on faith. Later surreptitiously removed from the Doctrine and Covenants.
I don't see any logical connection between his knowledge of the Father's decision on when the Christ should return (at the end of the age, not yet decided upon by God aparently), and Jesus Christ's authority on earth to forgive sins, demonstrated by his ability to enable a lame man to walk, as a human being on earth but knowing the will of the Father in respect to healing and forgiveness. Do you know the will of anyone who has not yet decided something? .
I believe that God chose, as a part of mortal existence, to not be cognizant of certain things, such as the exact time of the end, because it simply wouldn't do to have humanity find out this and some other information; it would affect how people acted in the future if they knew we had X number of years or Y number of days to go, to say nothing of how Satan would react. I like to think of it this way: suppose you were going to fight someone, and you were such an awesome fighter, you chose to keep one arm behind your back the entire time. You certainly had the capability to use that arm if you so chose, but you restrained yourself. God is so awesome, so far above us in capability, He chose in His infinite wisdom to hold back certain capabilities while He walked the earth as very man/very God. (But forgiving sins was not one of those capabilities that He held back.)
As was said before me, Christ being able to forgive sins is wholly different than knowing the day or the hour. On the second point, yes is the easy answer. But it's far more complicated. @Rexlion made a good point in God the Son holding back certain capabilities while He walked the earth. This is called historical the Humiliation of the Son, and in Philippians 2, the Apostle Paul makes it clear that Christ emptied himself, which the Church Fathers interpreted as laying aside certain divine privileges. So, using this in conjunction with Christ able to do divine things, like walk on water and other miracles and able to forgive sins on his Own authority, shows that He laid aside some privileges and spoke and acted only as a human in certain regards while other times spoke and acted as His divine nature. And this makes sense, the two natures of Christ and Jesus being able to act and speak in different regards. I would recommend a research into the hypostatic union and how this works. Others have written much better on this than me. and lastly, I would say Joseph Smith got his idea of the Holy Spirit being the mind of God wholly apart from Scripture. Scripture is clear that the Holy Spirit knows the mind of God but is not the mind of God. So Smith's idea is repugnant to the Bible and to the Holy Tradition passed down from the Apostles, as is many other teachings of Smith and his predecessors.
Thanks everyone for your inputs. I don't really buy the theory that Jesus can be wholly human and not know his return time and wholly human and do God like things like forgiving sins. So I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not for a moment suggesting J.S interprets scripture correctly. It's an interesting little study as to where Smith got his ideas and names from. For instance did you know Smith got his important name Nephi from his KJV Bible. It's just think that 1 Cor 2:11 was the seed for Smith's early writings about the holy Ghost. I consider myself a bit of an expert on Joseph Smith.
While I understand that it can be hard to wrap one's mind around the Hypostatic Union, I would again recommend doing some reading from theologians about this topic instead of just taking it from a forum, albeit, a good forum as this one is. Something else that might help understand it is while His human nature did not of its essence have knowledge of future events, the Lord's soul, by reason of its union with God did have such knowledge. Jesus, by virtue of His divine union with the Father, enjoyed the full and complete knowledge of the plan of salvation he had been sent to reveal. The knowledge he had from his human nature was limited, as human nature is. I think that a hard point may be for you that we in the Christian Tradition don't understand Jesus to be some sort of fusion of divine and human, like a mixing of natures. We understand and believe Jesus to be wholly man and wholly God. If Jesus is wholly man, and to be perfectly man one must have limited knowledge and not be omniscient, then the Son as the man Jesus Christ must have limited knowledge on some things, unless the divine reveal it to Him. This doctrine of Him being wholly man and wholly God means that the two natures are separate and united only in the Person of the Son, not united in nature, will, or spirit. Once one understands that, they can easily see how when Jesus is speaking as a man he is tired, hungry, thirsty, doesn't know certain things. But when He makes claims that only God could, like being eternal, the I Am, the Judge, the Resurrection, and so forth, we can understand that He is speaking as God, from His divine nature, since a human nature is not God or divine. This ultimately is a divine truth that is so far above our comprehension that we can never fully understand it; it is a mystery in the end. But everything about God is a mystery in the end. We must have faith in these things because reason can only go so far until our small minds can't understand further. Maybe in the eschaton we will be granted full understanding of the hypostatic union but I think now we must have faith, and we must harmonize the Scriptures. One final thought on how practical the Hypostatic Union is, is the idea that Jesus truly was fully human, not a superhuman or a demi-god. He can completely sympathize with us and understand us since He truly has experience what we have in His humanity. This will make Him far more approachable, at least, it does for me
As I said the Christian God is a complicated one. Well I have got Alister McGrath's "Christian Theology an Introductions" to read as well as another weighty tome "The Trinity- Evidence and Issues" by Robert Morey. I retired 5 months ago and the theory was I would have all this spare time to read, but it hasn't turned out that way.
Hallelujah He is complex! Praise God for His unlimited depths and riches! One book I recommend on the Trinity as well is The Forgotten Trinity by James White. Really good!
I've always said that we need to follow J I Packer's advice and start catechizing new Christians again. I doubt one Christian in ten could give a non-heretical answer to the question, "Can you explain the Trinity to me?" You're almost certain to get a modalist/Sabellianist answer of some sort (regardless of denomination). The notion of "personhood" as regarding the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is very difficult for many to understand when combined with the singularity of the Godhead. And the relative relationship of the three Persons is also a complicated one: is the Son inferior to the Father? Is the Holy Spirit subordinate to both Father and Son? If all three persons are equally God, how can there be a hierarchy among them? Church leadership needs to get back to basics on this sort of thing - we can no longer assume a basic knowledge of Christian theology in the population any more. Our culture is essentially pagan at this point. We must begin again.
Modalism is a very easy error to fall into, at least nowadays in the current cultural atmosphere. I will say that it's not enough to merely explain the nature of the Trinity to a 'young in the Lord' Christian, though; I received that in catechism classes as a child & youth, but it didn't stick and I gravitated in my 20s to a modalist concept. What worked for me, eventually, was to be shown some examples from the Bible which demonstrated why modalism is an error. For example, Joh_15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: and, Joh_16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. In both instances, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as "he," a personage. And if we notice all the times that Jesus prayed to God the Father, the question should be asked, 'Why would God the Son pray to another mode of Himself? Jesus prayed as to another person and referred to our heavenly Father as "he" (another person). Joh_5:19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
Only Almighty God is to be worshiped. Even royalty (kings and queens) are not worshiped except when they falsely claim to be gods themselves. What of Jesus? In this Advent season, it is good to recall that Jesus was worshiped at a very young age. Matthew 2:1-2,9-12 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.... When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
Here's an interesting story from 2018, about a mosaic dating from 230 A.D. in which Jesus is referred to as God. https://www.christiantoday.com/arti...st-as-god-to-be-unveiled-in-israel/126745.htm
I don't think I have yet posted the following verse in this thread, but it deserves attention: 1Tim 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
The only problem I can see with this as a proof that Jesus Christ, (truly, as a human being), was God actually walking the earth for 32 years, as well as being a Spirit in heaven, to be worshipped only in spirit and in truth, is the word 'HE' where the word 'GOD' has been translated by some. STRONG’S NUMBER:g3739 Dictionary Definition g3739. ὅς hos (masculine); ἥ hē (feminine); ὅ ho (neuter); probably a primary word (or perhaps a form of the article 3588); the relative pronoun (sometimes functioning as a demonstrative), who, which, what, that: — one, (an-, the) other, some, that, what, which, who(-m, -se), etc. See also 3757. AV (1392) - which 394, whom 262, that 129, who 84, whose 53, what 42, that which 20, whereof 13, misc 430; who, which, what, that - Wigram's count is 1309 not 1393. The word does not translate naturally as, 'GOD', was manifest in the flesh. Only as 'HE' was manifest in the flesh. It still implies that the 'HE' is Jesus Christ and we know that both 'HE' and The Father are 'ONE' but does not actually state literally that Jesus of Nazareth, while on Earth, was the second Person of the Trinity. It still leaves the possibility that the pre-incarnation, post-resurrecton Christ is the actual second Person of the Trinity and therefore God, but that Jesus of Nazareth had voluntarily 'emptied himself' of the Almighty Father aspects of The Second person of the Trinity, i.e. God. In all other respects however we are right to consider 'HE' to be equivalent to being 'GOD'. The only way for Jesus of Nazareth to be truly a member of 'mankind' he had to be truly human. To be truly human he could not also actually be God, because no truly human person has ever actually been also God. Jesus was like us humans in every conceivable way possible to God, so we must assume therefore that from his birth to his death on earth Jesus of Nazareth was a fully human being, uniquely able to know and do the will of God, to such an extent that everything Jesus of Nazareth did on earth was exactly what God would have done if God were to be incarnate and exactly what any human being could have done if He or she was able to know and do the will of God. In fact to all intents and purposes Jesus of Nazareth WAS God incarnate, BECAUSE, he was able to know and do the will of God. "Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." Heb.2:17. .
I understand what you're saying; in fact I was wondering who would be the first to raise this issue. It's good to have an opportunity to address the question of the Greek word used at this point in 1 Timothy. My eSword Bible program actually lists the word as θεός (G2316, theos), and I believe this is correct because the vast weight of ancient authority supports it. 1 Timothy 3:16 is referred to or quoted by a good many early fathers, and they all used the word "theos" in their quotes or references (see this page for details). Moreover, the great majority (nearly all, I think) of extant manuscripts use "theos", as can be seen if one navigates to this website and clicks on the pdf file for "1 Timothy 3:16 in the manuscripts"). The pdf concerning this verse in Alexandrinus is also enlightening. The fact of "theos" (God) being what Paul penned in that verse went unquestioned in the church, and no controversy existed among Bible scholars, prior to the early 18th Century; thus the most logical conclusion we can draw is that deterioration from age and use obscured the line which indicated the use of an abbreviation for θεός.