Help with the Trinity (Jesus Christ, priest, Creator, Earth, gospel)

[michel]

Originally Posted by The_Evelyonian

Thank you all for your posts!



That's always been my reasoning.

The interlinear Diaglott is as close as I've ever been able to get to the "original greek" and it says: "In a beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and a god was the Word." This seems to say that The Word (Jesus) was divine but not "the God".

One question I still have: In John 8:58 Jesus says, "Before Abraham ever was, I AM". Was Jesus claiming to be God? The people He was talking to seemed to think so. They tried to stone Him right after He said this.

Peace

From:- http://www.melbourne.catholic.org.au...6-20050317.htm
Holy Hour for Youth

at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne,
on Thursday, 17th March, 2005, at 6.30pm

Homily

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today, when we honour Saint Patrick, a remarkable missionary and servant of Jesus Christ, in the Gospel Jesus shows clearly the special relationship he has with the Father. “Whoever keeps my word will never see death.” When Jesus says, “I know him” of the Father, we realise that he is the only Son of God. Keeping his words is keeping God’s word. Then with the claim, “Before Abraham ever was, I am”, comes the realisation that he is God. Following Jesus’ plan is following God’s plan.

“The only way” William Barclay says, “to the full knowledge of the heart and mind of God is through Jesus Christ. With our own minds we can reach fragments of knowledge about God, but only in Jesus Christ is the full orb of truth, for in him alone do we know God. To look at Jesus is to be able to say, this is how God wishes me to live. To look at his life is to say, this is serving God. In Jesus alone we see what God wants us to know and what God wants us to be.”

Jesus says, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day.” That means that Abraham knew that there would be a day when God would be revealed and in Jesus we find the revelation of God. It is joy and gladness for him and it is for us

[The_Evelyonian]

Originally Posted by michel

From:- http://www.melbourne.catholic.org.au...6-20050317.htm
Holy Hour for Youth

at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne,
on Thursday, 17th March, 2005, at 6.30pm

Homily

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today, when we honour Saint Patrick, a remarkable missionary and servant of Jesus Christ, in the Gospel Jesus shows clearly the special relationship he has with the Father. “Whoever keeps my word will never see death.” When Jesus says, “I know him” of the Father, we realise that he is the only Son of God. Keeping his words is keeping God’s word. Then with the claim, “Before Abraham ever was, I am”, comes the realisation that he is God. Following Jesus’ plan is following God’s plan.

“The only way” William Barclay says, “to the full knowledge of the heart and mind of God is through Jesus Christ. With our own minds we can reach fragments of knowledge about God, but only in Jesus Christ is the full orb of truth, for in him alone do we know God. To look at Jesus is to be able to say, this is how God wishes me to live. To look at his life is to say, this is serving God. In Jesus alone we see what God wants us to know and what God wants us to be.”

Jesus says, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day.” That means that Abraham knew that there would be a day when God would be revealed and in Jesus we find the revelation of God. It is joy and gladness for him and it is for us

Good Post!

[Abram]

The trinity is just a way of explaining the mystery of Christ. We only see the situation from human eyes and logic. You must ask your self one question though, If Jesus was man how could he forgive sins.
The death of a man would meen nothing, how could the death of a man clear me of sins? If you believe the death of just a profit or important man frees you from sin you're wrong, how? Therefore to say Jesus was man is to say you have not been forgiven. Your cutting the branch your sitting on. All salvation is lost.

[may]

Originally Posted by The_Evelyonian

Thank you all for your posts!



That's always been my reasoning.

The interlinear Diaglott is as close as I've ever been able to get to the "original greek" and it says: "In a beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and a god was the Word." This seems to say that The Word (Jesus) was divine but not "the God".

One question I still have: In John 8:58 Jesus says, "Before Abraham ever was, I AM". Was Jesus claiming to be God? The people He was talking to seemed to think so. They tried to stone Him right after He said this.

Peace

regarding John 8;58
Jesus said to them: "Most truly I say to YOU, Before Abraham came into existence, I have been................. here Jesus was being truthful when he said that he came into existence before Abraham , Jesus had a pre-human life in the heavens before humans were created, he was in the heavens with his father Jehovah God , the bible all harmonizes when the correct interpretation is applied

Joh

8:58—"before Abraham came into existence, I have been"

Gr.,

πρ

ιν᾿Αβρααμ γενέσθαιεγω ειμί

(prin A·bra·am´ ge·ne´sthai e·go´ ei·mi´)

[sojourner]

Originally Posted by jorylore

Wow! Thanks for being so open minded.

In view of the scriptures you quoted, it sounds like you are familiar with what the Bible says about God and Jesus. I can offer clarification on certain Bible passages that Trinitarians use to support their belief. But before I do, I would like to appeal to your sense of reason.

Think about it. If the Trinity were true, it should be clearly and consistently presented in the Bible. Why? Because, the Bible is God's revelation of himself to mankind. And since we need to know God to worship him acceptably, the Bible should be clear in telling us just who he is. It should not be a mystery.

Also, consider that the Scriptures are "inspired of God" and are to used for "setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work." (2Tim. 3:16,17) Since the Bible is complete in doctrinal matters, if the Trinity doctrine is true, it should be there.
Then, why is the word "Trinity" not mentioned anywhere in the Bible?
Why can no scriptures be found that say that God is made up of three distinct persons, Father, Son, and holy spirit, and that the three are only one God? (Mat. 28:19, 20 simply mention the three in the same passage, it does not say that they are one)
Why can't any scripture that says that the Father, Son and holy spirit are equal in all ways, such as in eternity, power, position and wisdom?
Not even a single scripture says that the Son is equal to the Father in those ways-and if there were such a scripture, it would establish not a Trinity but at most a "duality."
Nowhere does the Bible equate the holy spirit with the Father.

Okay. But is the Trinity doctrine "implied" in the Scriptures, though not clearly stated?
Ask yourself: Why would the Bible only "imply" its most important teaching-who God is?
The Bible is clear on other teachings; why not on this, the most important one?
The reason is simple: It is not a Bible teaching.

A good point was made that I do agree with... God is love. Yet, how unloving on God's part if he were to conceal his true identity from us... to leave us wondering who he is and how he wants to be worshiped... to leave our understanding of him in the hands of scholars and theologians who give us complicated explanations to try to decipher, only to still be left confused. And when we still don't get it, they explain it all away but saying it's a mystery. I can't believe a God of love would do that. He would want us to know who he is. And he would surely have made it clear so that Jesus and his disciples could have taught it to others. He would not have left it to imperfect men to struggle with centuries later.

I hope this makes sense and isn't too long.

There is something I wanted to say about John 1:1 also. But I'll save that until tomorrow.

There are several problems with your line of reasoning here. First, you expect the Bible to give you all the "correct answers." That's not the Bible's purpose. It's not a textbook. It's a collection of different kinds of literature that "tell the story" of God's relationship with humanity.

Second, by expecting that we can understand God, you reduce the infinite God to something that can be grasped fully by the finite human mind. Paul acknowledges that "now we see dimly," and "now we understand in part." Only when we stand before God will we see and know completely.

Third, the Bible deserves more than just a surface reading. How can we expect to plumb the depths of what is written there, if we're only looking at "the tip of the iceberg," so to speak? In order to do that, it's good to have different perspectives, including scholarly ones.

Why can there not be mysteries that we do not understand? Why does it all "have to be plainly laid out in the Bible?" The word "Trinity" is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible for the same reason that the word "Bible" is never mentioned in the Bible. Yet, you seem to believe in the Bible... It's a human word that comes out of human understanding (just like all the words that are included in the Bible...)

Just because you feel that you are confused by the Trinity doesn't mean that it's not a Biblical concept. It doesn't mean that God is hiding something from you. I'm not confused by the Trinity...it makes perfect sense to me. I can't verbalize my understanding adequately, but that's a product of my finite humanity, not a product of God's having "hid something" from me.

God is too big for us to contain within our understanding and our language. The linguistic picture we paint of God in the Trinity is a limited picture, and probably does not do justice to the true nature of God, but it's the best we can do, until we see God face-to-face.

[James the Persian]

Originally Posted by may

Joh

8:58—"before Abraham came into existence, I have been"

Gr.,

πρ

ιν᾿Αβρααμ γενέσθαιεγω ειμί

(prin A·bra·am´ ge·ne´sthai e·go´ ei·mi´)

Bad translation. Ego eimi means I am, not I have been, but given the connotations of saying 'Before Abraham was, I AM' (with the stress on I as Greek is pro-drop), I can see the motivation for mistranslating it in this way. It's an abuse of the text to do so and one that can only be justified if you're willing to accept that altering a text to reflect theology is a valid excercise.

James

[Endless]

I agree with JamesThePersian May, it is a mistranslation of the text in order to fit the JW theology. It is also not the only mistranslation, John 1:1 is also mistranslated (there are also more) to read the following:

"In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was a god."

The actual Greek with the actual translation:

Joh 1:1 ¶ In <en> the beginning <arche> was <en> the Word <logos>, and <kai> the Word <logos> was <en> with <pros> God <theos>, and <kai> the Word <logos> was <en> God <theos>.

It cannot be translated 'the word was a God'.

[No*s]

Originally Posted by JamesThePersian

It doesn't, but that's only a fragment of the text and misses my point entirely. My point was that the text does not read (by any stretch of the imagination) as 'The Word was a god' in the original Greek. The opening of John's Gospel is one of many passages that I would say supported the Trinity, certainly in the original, but the only thing I was trying to point out was that the incredibly poor translation found in the New World Translation cannot be supported if you understand anything of the Koine it purports to translate. The traditional English translation is far more accurate.

James

I would suppliment this by pointing out that the absence of an article is important, because its absence does make a distinction between Father and Son (and thus avoid Modalism). A meaning for meaning translation of John's opening is "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word existed in relation to God, and the Word was what God was. The Same existed in the beginning in relation to God."

An Arian interpretation of this book is, frankly, untenable and indefensable. I put an article on RF way back when here. Rather than rehash a very long argument, I made it previously here, but alas, nobody ever took me up on the debate on the strict grounds I applied. This is because an Arian interpretation of John is simply indefensible, and a person needs intellectual fudgework to defend it (that thread doesn't allow for such fudgework).

[No*s]

Originally Posted by JamesThePersian

Bad translation. Ego eimi means I am, not I have been, but given the connotations of saying 'Before Abraham was, I AM' (with the stress on I as Greek is pro-drop), I can see the motivation for mistranslating it in this way. It's an abuse of the text to do so and one that can only be justified if you're willing to accept that altering a text to reflect theology is a valid excercise.

James

Actually, ego eimi can be used that way. It is a perfective present, and you can see it in Acts 17.6 ("have come," instead of "are coming") and Jn. 14.9 ("I have been with you in such a long time, and still you don't know Me?" instead of "I am with you such a long time, and you still don't know Me?"). The principle is real.

The NWT errs, though, in ignoring the wordplay in the passage. It juxtaposes two verbs for "to be" against each other, which are almost synonomous, but not fully. For Abraham, John uses a Greek word that also means "born;" it implies a coming into being. For Christ, he uses eimi, which has no such connotations. Abraham came to be, and Christ did not. Had John intended otherwise, he could have used ginomai in both cases.

Furthermore, the phrase ego eimi is used in the LXX in Isaiah to translate God's name (not in Exodus). The Pharisees understood this and tried to stone Christ, and Christ furthers the interpretation by not trying to avoid the charge of blasphemy. All he'd have to do is say "Listen, yall, I didn't mean to say that I was God, but..." and He didn't do that.

The NWT rendering of trinitarian passages is simply horrendeous, as in this case .