Well, it is clear that Jesus has a God and Father.
Yes, He does, as pertaining to His hypostatic union with Him. But you must consider that Jesus had humbled himself and emptied himself in the incarnation and was (willfully, not because He had no choice) operating within the limitations of being a man, while acting under Jewish law (
Philippians 2:5-8).
So please clarify this for me : does your belief that Jesus has a God and a Father mean to you that Jesus is not God? That's what I am hearing from you, and that is what I am basing my dialog with you on.
And just a quick side note, one that I may or may not come back to later, if you do believe Jesus is not God, then how to do you explain the fact that God gives His glory to NO ONE and knows no other Gods, and yet He gives His glory to someone who is NOT even God? I asked you that in my last post and you never answered it.
What is Jesus, if not God? A prophet of God? A man? A lesser, an inferior? Can someone who is not God have the fullness of God dwell in Him bodily? (Col 2:9)
Phil 2:6-7
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.
That is one of the reasons why Jesus served and worshiped God, because He came in the role of servant (and, as mentioned, was under the Jewish law), not because He was in a subservient position by nature, but because He chose that role for the purposes He came for.
Is it okay for you or I to think that it is not robbery for us to think of ourselves as equal with God? Who but God could say that (and get away with it?). He wasn't lower than God, He was equal to Him. For Him to be able to say that of Himself, and act accordingly, with God's approval means He was/is God. Either that, or Jesus somehow got away with saying and doing things that no one else would have been allowed to. YHVH is a jealous God, except with (the non-God) Jesus?
Added to that, God, the Father, couldn't save us Himself,
personally, so He sent someone else to do it (Jesus), and an underling at that? The Father was/is the Savior of Israel but is not of the Gentiles? You can't have it both ways, either we have a God that is the God of all and the Savior of all, or we have polytheism - a "YHVH for the Jews" and a "Jesus for the rest of us". But you say Jesus isn't God, the same Jesus who said He is "I AM".
We are finite minds trying to understand the infinite mind of God, and our finite minds think because we can't fathom a concept, God can't either. In other words, we might say "how can God be man and God at the same time", it's impossible. Yet with God all
things are possible. Why did Jesus pray to the Father? We can all ask Him one day when we're with Him. But the deity of Christ has been a rock-solid truth of the church from it's beginning, and cults and atheists have been hammering away at that truth for centuries. If Christ was not Deity then He was a liar, because He never once corrected or rebuked anyone that worshiped Him as God.
On that note, Jesus is THE King of Kings and Lord of Lords, not
A King and Lord. Do not see the difference? If Jesus is not God then He is not THE king of Kings. As I stated in my last post, I remind you that
everything Jesus said of Himself, the Father also said of Himself in the O.T. Take the greatest prophet - Elijah, Moses, Isaiah, etc., and consider what would have happened to them if they said ANY of the things Jesus said.
Okay, back to my first point that Jesus was born under the Law and acted accordingly. Would you agree that Jesus had two natures, one divine and one human? It was in His human substance that He called on God, because Jesus was born under the Law, and all who were under the law were required to love God with all their hearts, minds and strength and to worship Him (etc.).
For Jesus, in His humanity, to not do this would have been a sin, but He was completely sinless and completely fulfilled the law of Moses and did the things He did to "fulfill all righteousness".
Case in point, do you think Jesus
needed to be baptized? You see, if you take things at face value, it is easy to come up with simple (and wrong) answers to complex questions. Cults do that all the time.
We wouldn't have to be admonished to search the scriptures if all we had to do was cart-blanch accept at face value everything that was said and done. The Mormons think the Father is a man, with a physical body, because the bible talks about Him having hands and eyes and ears, etc. And in similar reasoning you think Jesus is not God because we have words like Father, Son, servant, etc. We have a bible that is written in human form, attempting to describe the supernatural things of God in a way that can be grasped by finite man. How else would God inform us that He "hears" us, if not by telling us He has "ears"?
So you think because the words say that Jesus has a God, that that means Jesus isn't God, or is lower than Him, or subject to Him. But you are missing the language of the bible and how it is used and why it is used.
Please answer this question, if you ignore everything else I said :
If the Godhead - the Trinity - is not, as you seem to be averring - co-equal, co-eternal and co-powerful, but instead consists of God the Father being the head, with Jesus being under Him, next in line in the hierarchy so to speak, then where does the Holy Spirit fit in?
In other words, do you think the Godhead is composed of a General, a Colonel and a Captain, or similar? Because that's certainly what it sounds like to me (correct me if I'm wrong!)
Back to the language of the bible :
In Isaiah 34, when God came down in judgment, did all the stars in the sky really dissolve and the heavens roll up like a scroll; and all the starry host fall like withered leaves from the vine, and were Edom’s streams turned into pitch? Or did it mean something else? Should we take all statements in the bible at face value and then form a theology around them, or do we read the whole message and context of the entire bible?
If the God of Jesus is not the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then the whole Christian premise is null and void.
Now you're sounding like an old-covenant Jew again! If you believe what you just said, then why do we have or bother with a New Testament? Why do we need Jesus? What is the Good News? Was the Father not GOOD ENOUGH news? Why did God the Father give His glory to another - Jesus - when there was
no need whatsoever for Him to do so? For it is abundantly clear from the old testament scriptures that YHVH -
ONLY - no if's, and's or but's, was their God, their SAVIOR, their Redeemer, their Holy One, that He "knows no other" and gives His glory to no other. Etc.!
You said below that He doesn't give His glory to another, which is absurd. Why did the jealous God of Israel not do everything Himself regarding the world's salvation? Because He couldn't? Or He didn't feel like it? Or He thought that presenting a Son to the world would be better for His image? It sure didn't do anything for His people, the Jews!
I assume you believe the Apostle's Creed that says "I believe in
God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth". If so, then was the Apostle Paul mistaken when he said of Christ :
Col. 1:16
"
For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers : all things were created by Him and for Him."
Or was the Apostle's Creed wrong? Which is it, did the Father create everything or did the Son? Is the O.T. God our CREATOR, or is Jesus? Why is the Father okay with having created the whole universe and giving all that enormous glory to someone else? I say because Jesus is God; if He wasn't, there would be no way YHVH, in His eternally consistent nature could or would do that.
There is only one true God. Jesus even said so. The question is then, how can God share His glory with another. He doesn't. He shows His glory through His creation so they will glorify Him above all, not the creation He works through.
I already covered this point about language, and I disagree that YHVH didn't share His glory.
Here is a passage where Jesus is praying, or talking with His God, His Father, who worked through him for the salvation of souls. Salvation comes by God through Jesus. There is no other way. If Jesus is God, then God Himself died on the cross, and Jesus was talking to himself. Who was the voice heard from heaven then that said "This is My Son, in whom I am well pleased"?
In order to understand such questions it is first necessary to accept the idea that God/Jesus has many natures, roles, personifications, etc. Regarding your statement that, "if Jesus is God, then God Himself died on the cross", I already showed you scripture where YHVH said HIS hands were pierced, but you ignore that because it doesn't fit your "Jesus is not God, nor the God of the O.T." paradigm.
Regarding your question about who spoke from heaven and said, "this is my Son in whom I am well pleased", the implicit answer you take from it is that it is someone else apart from Jesus, otherwise, as you said, Jesus would be talking to Himself. But that answer also comes with the pre-supposition that God cannot do miraculous things like be in Heaven and earth at the same time. Or do things that would make us scratch our heads in awe.
Salvation comes from God through Jesus. We are saved in order to know the only true God. We are redeemed back to God, not back to Jesus.
All the while, Jesus is Lord of Lords and King of Kings, having gotten away with literally stealing not only that title from the old testament God, but stealing the authority and power behind it??? And again, YHVH the
Savior, who
never changes (so that we do not perish!), changed His whole persona and made someone else the Savior of the world?? And that glorified Him?
God was glorified by Jesus. He finished the work that God His Father gave to him to accomplish.
Because YHVH passed the buck to someone else, or needed assistance in order to accomplish His goals?
Jesus was glorified by God before the world was. He was with God...not God Himself.
Tell me then, why
was Jesus with God? God created the angels but He didn't create Jesus, unless you believe Jesus is not eternal. So, if we picture God, the Father, in His station before the creation of the cosmos, before ever creating the heavens, the angels, etc., it would mean God
alone existed, there was nothing but God. So why would there be anyone else with Him, and how could anyone be with Him from the start if He were not only
not God, but if He wasn't eternal? Who but God is eternal?
And Jesus created everything, nothing being created without Him (scripture attests to this), but as a
non-God. Is that what you believe? Jesus existed with God from the beginning but when He came to earth He came in the likeness of human flesh, so that we would be able to relate to Him and follow Him. As Acts says, "In Him we live and move and have our being", but He isn't really God? What is wrong with that picture?
We are made one with God and His Christ by the Holy Spirit. That does not mean that Christ is God above all gods!
Once again, He is not really King of Kings and Lord of Lords then, because He isn't God. Only God is as such.
What is the reason that Jesus is praying that they all may be one as he and his Father are one? So the world may believe that God sent Jesus, and believe the glory that the Father gave Jesus he has also given them. Does that mean then, according to the oneness doctrine, that if Jesus and the Father are one and the same person, that we are also some kind of incarnate of Jesus (and thus God)? That would be blasphemy would it not?
Well, that depends how you use the word, "one" here. One, as in being branches as a part of the Vine? One, as in undivided in our loyalty and togetherness and fellowship with one another?
God sent Jesus, not His own self to die on a cross.
I think you are dividing the unity and Oneness of God again. God is SPIRIT and as such, to die on a cross and shed blood for the remission of sins He had to do so in the likeness of human flesh. What if I reworded your statement to say God died on the cross by means of Christ? Would that make a diffence? Also, how could Jesus pay the penalty for our sins if He isn't God? After all, our trespasses are against God, not man, and the wages of sin is death, which is what the fall in Eden resulted in for all of us. But God chose to die for us, in our stead, so that we may live. Did He not?
When Jesus healed the lame man, He said "which is easier to say, get up and walk, or your sins be forgiven you?", He was showing the people that He has the power (and right) to forgive sins, and every Jew listening to and watching Him knew the implication of what they were seeing and hearing, believeing that only GOD has the power and authority to do so.
And how was YHVH the
Savior of Israel? Was His Savior status in title only, not in actuality? How did He
personally save
anyone? For without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, and scripture tells us very succinctly that the animal sacrifices were not sufficient to remove sin, they were just a covering. So YHVH saved Israel (and all of us) in
DUE TIME, through Christ, Christ being the
visible representation of the invisible God and His chosen means of salvation for mankind. That's why Christ died on the cross - not
for God, but because He
is God, for no man could die for us and take away our sins against God.
A parallel question I could ask is, how does God demonstrate his
OWN (not someone else's) love for us in that while we were still sinners, CHRIST died for us? (Romans 5:8) So can you then say He sent someone else to do it for Him, because He preferred that someone else suffer, rather than Himself? That's, of course, ridiculous.
YHVH did EVERYTHING, without assistance for and to His Israelite people, He was literally the one in whom they lived, and moved, and had their being ........ their whole existence was centered around Him. So did God get tired of being their everything, and decided to let SOMEONE ELSE (Jesus) be the one in whom we now live and move and have our being?
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Also be careful about the sacred name movement. There is a whole lot of bad fruit coming from all sides on that one.
On that note, about the sacred name movement, which I am not a part of (is there a membership for that?), the simple reason I sometimes, not always, use the name Yahweh, is because He is revealed in the O.T. by that name, whereas His name isn't
LORD. Lord was inserted in the scriptures out of dread of using God's ineffable name.
In Hosea 2:16 it says :
And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.
Baal means Lord/Master. God here is saying, "no more call me Master, call me Husband". So it's in that context that I don't use Lord, being a simple preference of mine. I don't think there is anything magical or special about using YHVH. God bless!
