Results 1 - 4 of 4
|
|
|||||
Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | How can Jesus be tempted if He is God? | Heb 4:15 | RevC | 4999 | ||
Joe! I can see your point here and how it can be confusing. While I do not totally discredit the trinitarian view I feel it is limited in trying to fit God into three persons as opposed to fitting Him into three roles. Which I have done a more than ample job explaning. The mute point and one that we have found that we can agree on is there is ONE GOD. I think I am correct in that? Arent I? Nonetheless I will answer your questions and then ask a few of you myself First your addressal of the first 4 points. I think that would be an awful lot of rehash at this point. If you would like I could e mail you all of that information or I could repost my commments they have been quite informative and full of scripture,explanation and so on. To address your last comment- Jesus is the "Son" of God, Yet He is God...Now then that is a little confusing in its self and both are sciptural. God fulfills each role in complete fullness the son,the father and the holy spirit.... which is why Colossians tells us the fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in Him bodily. In other words Jesus was the father, the son and the holy spirit. That is obviously and blatantly scriptural. Thus Jesus has two natures-Spirit and flesh,God and man,Father and Son. So no I do not necessarily believe that His sonship was only human in nature. I do believe in three seperate and distinct roles. Now I'll really put my neck on the chopping block. I also believe that He can fulfill these three roles at the same time. yeesh! scarey huh? However In the book of Isaiah God makes some very strong statements which I believe do not allow for a Trinitarian understanding. In Isaiah 44:6-8 God makes the statement, I am the first and I am the last, And there is NO God BESIDES ME . . . Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any. Could scripture be any plainer than this? In verse 24 he states, I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone. If language means anything then by Myself" and alone mean that there was no other person present. If God is not claiming that he is absolutely one here, then what stronger language would one suggest to convey this? If we take this to be one of the members of the Trinity speaking here, would it be honest for him to say, "There is no one besides Me? Would he not be forced to admit that there are indeed two other persons in the Godhead? God Bless you Joe. |
||||||
2 | Must one God mean one Person? | Heb 4:15 | RWC | 5755 | ||
I first read this message several days ago and I started to write a response offline. Now I see that someone has already responded to you and said basically what I wanted to say, and in FAR fewer words! But please consider my comments below. The repeated stand of the trintarian point of view, if I understand it all, is that there is one (and only one!) God who exists in three persons, and who has done so for all of eternity. Without question, the emphatic point of Is. 44.6-8 (and many other verses like it) is that there is only one living and true God, maker of Heaven and Earth, and that there is none (absolutely none!) besides Him. You have two statements in your posting that seem to somehow miss that. The first is your statement, "If language means anything then by Myself" and alone mean that there was no other person present." You are making a jump from the statement "there is one God" (which is what that verse and the others like it actually says) to "therefore there can only be one Person." Secondly, your last question, ("If we take this to be one of the members of the Trinity speaking here, would... he not be forced to admit that there are indeed two other persons in the Godhead?") makes the same mistake of jumping from "one God" to "one person." These statements imply (or at least it seems to me that they imply) that the trinitarian view point must believe in a multiplicity of gods because it holds to a multiplicity of persons within the one true and living God. And that of course, does not represent the trinitarian point of view at all. Trinitarians hold to Is. 44.6-8 (and all of the other verses that claim monotheism!) just as strongly as you do. And trinitarians are just as strongly opposed to theologies and ideologies that teach polytheism as you are. In defending or explaining your "oneness" point of view, don't allow yourself to "set up a straw man" or otherwise miss the real issue. We agree, I think, that there is only one God. We agree, I think, that Jesus was and is both fully God and fully human at the same time. The crux of the issue, if I understand it, is the question: are there three separate individual persons or only one person who takes on three forms or roles? It occurs to me that this discussion is headed down a significantly different path than the current subject. If you would be kind enough to cross-post your note to which this message is responding (and then let me know), I will do the same. Perhaps post it as a note or a question attached to Is. 44.6 or some other verse of your choosing. Just put a line at the top of the new message explaining that it is a cross-posted message and where it had originally come from. If you will do that, save your response to my message until we have these both cross-posted, and then we can keep the discussion on the subject and attached to the verse (or principle) that we are actually discussing. |
||||||
3 | Must one God mean one Person? | Heb 4:15 | orthodoxy | 5782 | ||
This question is easy to answer, for it has been asked and answered in church history. The Athanasian Creed states: Now the catholic* faith is that we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit. Actually, the possibility you present, that God exists as one person with three manifestations, is a long recognized heresy, Sabellianism, also called modalism. This was officially recognized as heresy in the third century and Sabellius, the theory's originator, was excommunicated. It has been firmly established that one cannot be part of the Christian church and hold to modalism. This is not intended to be a condemnation of anyone, but a simple word of warning. *a word rich in tradition simply meaning "universal." It is only when capitalized, thus: "Catholic," that this term refers to Rome. |
||||||
4 | Must one God mean one Person? | Heb 4:15 | RWC | 5979 | ||
Please forgive me if I wasn't very clear. Or perhaps you didn't read my note thoroughly. Or maybe both are true. First of all, my understanding of the Scripture is very much Trinitarian. I was only trying to clarify exactly what the point of difference is between the Trinitarian view and the "oneness" view. If you have not already done so, please read the message to which I was responding. That might help to clear up some of the misunderstanding. Secondly, even though I agree with you in our view on the Trinity, I am not at all sure that I would consider a creedal statement to be an authoritative proof providing "a simple answer." There is certainly some value in knowing how the people of history have understood the Scriptures. But that is not the same thing as the Scripture itself. A "simple answer," in my estimation, would be a few quotes from Scripture (taken in their context, of course!) |
||||||