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NASB | Revelation 3:14 ¶ "To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ¶ The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this: |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Revelation 3:14 ¶ "To the angel (divine messenger) of the church in Laodicea write: "These are the words of the Amen, the trusted and faithful and true Witness, the Beginning and Origin of God's creation: |
Bible Question:
Truthfinder, The Jesus is wisdom argument leads nowhere. Quoting from Radioman2's post: "...This passage is speaking of Wisdom, and for those who teach this is Jesus the evidence is not there. Another point is that the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus was God's first creation and therefore believe this to be speaking of Jesus and like to use different Bible Versions that would indicate that this Wisdom was created...." By this strange reasoning, God was not really "God" until after He "created" wisdom. How could He have been God before He had wisdom. Can you see that this Jehovah's Witness argument is both anti-Jehovah, as well as, anti-Christ? Maybe by reading somewhere between the lines of the NWT it is written: "Duh..., well I think I will create wisdom"? :o( Pastor Glenn |
Bible Answer: Hi Pastor Glenn, The point about wisdom is logically that wisdom had no beginning since it is one of the four attributes of the Almighty. Thus wisdom is pictorial of something that had a beginning and a direct correlation in both thought and wording exists in Proverbs and Col 1:15 for drawing an accurate and logical conclusion. Jesus, in his prehuman existence, was as Col 1:15 tells us according to the NJB, “the first-born of all creation.” He was “the beginning of God’s creation.” (Revelation 3:14, RS, Catholic edition). “Beginning” [Greek, ar·khe´] cannot rightly be interpreted to mean that Jesus was the ‘beginner’ of God’s creation. In his Bible writings, John uses various forms of the Greek word ar·khe´ more than 20 times, and these always have the common meaning of “beginning.” Yes, Jesus was created by God as the beginning of God’s invisible creations. But now notice how closely those references to the origin of Jesus correlate with expressions uttered by the figurative “Wisdom” in the Bible book of Proverbs: “Yahweh created me, first-fruits of his fashioning, before the oldest of his works. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I came to birth; before he had made the earth, the countryside, and the first elements of the world.” (Again according to the New Jerusalem Bible) While the term “Wisdom” is used to personify the one whom God created, most scholars agree that it is actually a figure of speech for Jesus as a spirit creature prior to his human existence. What is really interesting about the rebuttals made by pro-Trinitarians during the Nicene confession is they were using the LXX (regarding it as “inspired”) and it, the LXX, translates the Hebrew qanah with the Greek, ektizo (a form of ktizo, meaning “create” or “make”). Thus they failed to provide an acceptable interpretation to prove Jesus was not Created. This is seen from Athanasius’ (c. 296-373CE) effort, over many pages to conclude, “The Lord created me a beginning of His ways,’ as if to say, “My Father hath prepared for Me a body, and has created Me for men in behalf of their salvation.”--Four Discourses Against the Arians, Discourse 2, chap. 19. P 374. Yes, Athanasius interprets Proverbs 8:22 as a reference to the Word’s (Jesus Christ’s) sojourn in the flesh. As “Wisdom” in his prehuman existence, Jesus goes on to say that he was “by his [God’s] side, a master craftsman.” (Proverbs 8:30, JB) In harmony with this role as master craftsman, Colossians 1:16 says of Jesus that “through him God created everything in heaven and on earth.”—Today’s English Version (TEV). So it was by means of this master worker, his junior partner, as it were, that Almighty God created all other things. The Bible summarizes the matter this way: “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things . . . and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” 1 Corinthians 8:6, RS, Catholic edition. Truthfinder |