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The Bible declares that Jesus is God

whirlingmerc

Well-Known Member
The Bible declares Jesus is God but does it many ways that can be missed.
John the Baptist is filled with the holy spirit but Jesus is the holy child, for example.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
The Bible declares Jesus is God but does it many ways that can be missed.
It's really not that simple as when Jesus refers to "the Father", including praying to him, then logically he cannot be exactly one and the same with "the Father". This is why historically it has been called "the mystery of the trinity" because, at least at face value, it doesn't make sense. The early church very much struggled with this, and there was and still is different theories as to the relationship between Jesus and God.
 

Rick B

Active Member
Premium Member
Romans 9:5
whose are the patriarchs and of whom is the Christ according to the flesh being over all God blessed to the ages Amen

It is my intention to have this text (which I challenged with earlier) be my final positive proposition that the Bible affirms the deity of Christ. Especially since @kjw47 has appeared to decline further attempts to defend his religious adherence or respond to my refutations.
 
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djhwoodwerks

Well-Known Member
He first asserts that no one has “seen God at any time.” Now, the Old Testament tells us that men have indeed seen God in the past – Isaiah saw God on His throne in Isaiah 6; Abraham walked with Yahweh in Genesis 18. So what does John mean? He defines for us that the one he is speaking of here is the Father – that is, no one has seen the Father at any time. OK, then who was it that was seen by Isaiah or by Abraham?

In Isaiah 6:1 and 2, Jesus is the one being seen and described, we know this because it is "Lord". Verse 3 is about the Father, because of the word "LORD". Isaiah saw Jesus sitting on His throne in verses 1 and 2.
 

kjw47

Well-Known Member
It is my intention to have this text (which I challenged with earlier) be my final positive proposition that the Bible affirms the deity of Christ. Especially since @kjw47 has appeared to decline further attempts to defend his religious adherence or respond to my refutations.


Jesus replies to that at John 20:17--and while back in heaven at Revelation 3:12--You wont believe Jesus over a man with a white collar on. Not all is as appears in this satan ruled system( 2Corinthians 11:12-15--Him and his teachers transform into an angel of light--making it appear good to the mortal heart.
Who did God tell you to believe? He spoke from heaven at Jesus baptism and said--This is my son the beloved in whom I am well pleased--LISTEN TO HIM. When Jesus has 3 real teachers teaching Jesus has a God as well--it is truth. Fact has proven no capitol G God belongs in the last line of John 1:1. A god is correct--He was made lower than the angels( Heb 2:7-9) while on earth--a mortal. Gods power went through him( Acts 2:22) just as it did through Moses. As well they did not bow in worship to a mortal Jesus as trinity translation has erred in translating--it kills the trinity theory and so do facts.
 
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Rick B

Active Member
Premium Member
Romans 9:5

Byzantine / Majority Text
ων οι πατερες και εξ ων ο χριστος το κατα σαρκα ο ων (5723) επι παντων θεος ευλογητοςεις τους αιωνας αμην

Tichendorf 8th Edition
ὧν οἱ πατέρες, καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα• ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰςτοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.

Textus Receptus
ων οι πατερες και εξ ων ο χριστος το κατα σαρκα ο ων (5723) επι παντων θεος ευλογητοςεις τους αιωνας αμην

Neste-Aland 26
ωJν (5752) οἱ πατέρες, καὶ εχ ωJν (5752) ὁ χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα· ὁ ωJν (5752) ἐπὶ πάντωνθεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.

Westcott / Hort, UBS4
ων οι πατερες και εξ ων ο χριστος το κατα σαρκα ο ων (5723) επι παντων θεος ευλογητοςεις τους αιωνας αμην

whose are the patriarchs and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh who is over all God blessed forever Amen

NWT Interlinear
ὧν(of whom) οἱ(the), πατέρες,(fathers) καὶ(and) ἐξ(out of) ὧν(whom) ὁ(the) χριστὸς(Christ) τὸ(the (thing) κατὰ(according to), σάρκα,(flesh) ὁ(the (one) ὢν(being) ἐπὶ(upon),(all (things) θεὸς(God) εὐλογητὸς(blessed (one) εἰς(into) τοὺς(the) αἰῶνας·(ages ἀμήν)

Of whom (εξ ων). Fourth relative clause and here with εξ and the ablative. Christ (ο χριστος). The Messiah. As concerning the flesh (τὸ κατὰ σάρκα). Accusative of general reference, "as to the according to the flesh." Paul limits the descent of Jesus from the Jews to his human side as he did in Acts 1:3 . Who is over all, God blessed for ever (ὁ oν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς ). A clear statement of the deity of Christ following the remark about his humanity. This is the natural and the obvious way of punctuating the sentence. To make a full stop after σαρκα (or colon) and start a new sentence for the doxology is very abrupt and awkward. See Acts 20:28 ; Titus 2:13 for Paul's use of θεὸς applied to Jesus Christ. A. T. Robertson Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament Bible Commentary

Bruce Metzger says: "The interpretation that refers the passage to Christ suits the structure of the sentence, whereas the interpretation that takes the words as an asyndetic doxology to God the Father is awkward and unnatural." (p. 521) Bruce Metzger also refers to Nigel Turner as declaring it to be grammatically unnatural that a participle agreeing with CHRISTOS "should first be divorced from it and then given the force of a wish, receiving a different person as its subject." (Metzger gives Grammatical Insights into the New Testament Edinburgh, 1965), page 15 by Nigel Turner.
 

kjw47

Well-Known Member
Colossians 2:8-9 (ESV Strong's) 8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,

You say that because you are the blind being led by the blind! Explain your understanding of, "the WHOLE FULLNESS of deity" that dwells in Jesus' body.


Trinity translating error to fit false council teachings. The only translating in existence is Catholicism translating--JW translating,( protestant translating from Catholicism translating errors) they could not fix,
Trinity translations teach 2 different Gods--like at John 1:1--In plain English trinity talk, the second line reads--And God was with God= impossible--there is one God--or the same at Rev 3:12--Jesus teaches he has a God 4 x in a single paragraph--so in plain trinity talk--God has a God= impossible--there is one God.
 

kjw47

Well-Known Member
You presented Proverbs 8 to support your evidence that Jesus is Michael the archangel. I responded by going to Proverbs 8 and altogether refuted your evidence. Your reaction is 2 sentences about 1Cor. 1:30? Totally inept.

Tell me. Exactly what does that have to do with your insistence that Jesus is Michael the archangel?
Because rev 6 occurred in 1914--The first ride of the white horse= righteous war--the war in heaven--Michael battled satan and his angels and beat them, casting them out of heaven forever to the earth.-- Notice--he receives his crown--only Jesus is getting the crown( this is Gods kingdom taking full control of heaven-The presence)
Satan came like a devouring lion, angry, knowing his time is short--ww1--hearts filled with hatred--millions slaughtered( other 3 riders) after ww1--millions upon millions died all over the earth from the filth of slaughtering one another, pestilence, starvation, diseases--they still ride, Jesus rides the second ride of the white horse at Har-mageddon--He is the rider both times. Him getting the crown at the first ride proves it-- their are only two rides of the white horse mentioned in revelation.
 

kjw47

Well-Known Member
John 14:1 NWT
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.+ Exercise faith in God;+ exercise faith also in me."
John 14:1 NASB
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me."

It is only our familiarity with these words that blinds us to their wonderfulness and their greatness. Try to hear them for the first time, and to bring into remembrance the circumstances in which they were spoken. Here is a man sitting among a handful of His friends, who is within four-and-twenty hours of a shameful death, which to all appearance was the utter annihilation of all His claims and hopes, and He says, ‘Trust in God, and trust in Me’! I think that if we had heard that for the first time, we should have understood a little better than some of us do the depth of its meaning.

Further, note that, whatever may be this believing in Him which He asks from us or invites us to render, it is precisely the same thing which He bids us render to God. The two clauses in the original bring out that idea even more vividly than in our version, because the order of the words in the latter clause is inverted; and they read literally thus: ‘Believe in God, in Me also believe.’ The purpose of the inversion is to put these two, God and Christ, as close together as possible; and to put the two identical emotions at the beginning and at the end, at the two extremes and outsides of the whole sentence. Could language be more deliberately adopted and moulded, even in its consecution and arrangement, to enforce this thought, that whatever it is that we give to Christ, it is the very same thing that we give to God? And so He here proposes Himself as the worthy and adequate recipient of all these emotions of confidence, submission, resignation, which make up religion in its deepest sense.

...What signalises Him, and separates Him from all other religious teachers, is not the clearness or the tenderness with which He reiterated the truths about the divine Father’s love, or about morality, and justice, and truth, and goodness; but the peculiarity of His call to the world is, ‘Believe in Me.’ And if He said that, or anything like it, and if the representations of His teaching in these four Gospels, which are the only source from which we get any notion of Him at all, are to be accepted, why, then, one of two things follows. Either He was wrong, and then He was a crazy enthusiast, only acquitted of blasphemy because convicted of insanity; or else-or else-He was ‘God, manifest in the flesh.’ It is vain to bow down before a fancy portrait of a bit of Christ, and to exalt the humble sage of Nazareth, and to leave out the very thing that makes the difference between Him and all others, namely, these either audacious or most true claims to be the Son of God, the worthy Recipient and the adequate Object of man’s religious emotions. ‘Believe in God, in Me also believe.’

These two clauses on the surface present juxtaposition. Looked at more closely they present interpenetration and identity. Jesus Christ does not merely set Himself up by the side of God, nor are we worshippers of two Gods when we bow before Jesus and bow before the Father; but faith in Christ is faith in God, and faith in God which is not faith in Christ is imperfect, incomplete, and will not long last. To trust in Him is to trust in the Father; to trust in the Father is to trust in Him.

...And, on the other hand, the truth that underlies this is not only that Jesus Christ is the Revealer of God, but that He Himself is divine. Light shines through a window, but the light and the glass that makes it visible have nothing in common with one another. The Godhead shines through Christ, but He is not a mere transparent medium. It is Himself that He is showing us when He is showing us God. ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen’-not the light that streams through Me-but ‘hath seen,’ in Me, ‘the Father.’ And because He is Himself divine and the divine Revealer, therefore the faith that grasps Him is inseparably one with the faith that grasps God. Men could look upon a Moses, an Isaiah, or a Paul, and in them recognise the eradiation of the divinity that imparted itself through them, but the medium was forgotten in proportion as that which it revealed was beheld. You cannot forget Christ in order to see God more clearly, but to behold Him is to behold God. MacLaren's Expositions

believe also in me—that is, Have the same trust in Me. What less, and what else, can these words mean? And if so, what a demand to make by one sitting familiarly with them at the supper table! Compare the saying in Joh 5:17, for which the Jews took up stones to stone Him, as "making himself equal with God" (Joh 14:18). But it is no transfer of our trust from its proper Object; it is but the concentration of our trust in the Unseen and Impalpable One upon His Own Incarnate Son, by which that trust, instead of the distant, unsteady, and too often cold and scarce real thing it otherwise is, acquires a conscious reality, warmth, and power, which makes all things new. This is Christianity in brief...

Ye believe in God, believe also in me: or, Believe in God, ye believe in me. But the disciples’ faith in Christ as Mediator, and God man, being yet weak, and their weakness being what our Saviour hath ordinarily blamed, not magnified, or commended, the best interpreters judge the sense which our translators give to be the best sense; and judge that our Saviour doth inculcate to them his Divine nature, and again offer himself to them as the proper object of their faith. You (saith he) own it for your duty to trust in God, as your Creator, and he that provideth for you: believe also in me, as God equal with my Father; and in me, as the Messiah, your Mediator and Redeemer: so as you have one to take care or all your concerns, both those of your bodies, and those of your souls also, so as you have nothing to be immoderately and excessively, or distrustfully, troubled for; therefore let not your hearts be troubled; only, without care or distrust, commit yourselves to me. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary


Listen to the words at John 14:1--two beings mentioned--one is God--one is Jesus. Yes one must believe in the real Jesus--Gods son--not God. Jesus has a mortal mother. God has no beginning.
God is king of eternity. Jesus had to be appointed king( Daniel 7:13-15)--then must hand the kingdom back to his God and Father and subject himself 1Cor 15:24-28)--because he is Michael. Named Jesus as a mortal.
It is Michael who stands up for the sons of Daniel. Daniel 12:1--Jesus came just for the sons of Daniel--it was Paul who was commishioned to go to the gentiles as well.
 

Rick B

Active Member
Premium Member
Jesus replies to that at John 20:17--and while back in heaven at Revelation 3:12--You wont believe Jesus over a man with a white collar on. Not all is as appears in this satan ruled system( 2Corinthians 11:12-15--Him and his teachers transform into an angel of light--making it appear good to the mortal heart.
Who did God tell you to believe? He spoke from heaven at Jesus baptism and said--This is my son the beloved in whom I am well pleased--LISTEN TO HIM. When Jesus has 3 real teachers teaching Jesus has a God as well--it is truth. Fact has proven no capitol G God belongs in the last line of John 1:1. A god is correct--He was made lower than the angels( Heb 2:7-9) while on earth--a mortal. Gods power went through him( Acts 2:22) just as it did through Moses. As well they did not bow in worship to a mortal Jesus as trinity translation has erred in translating--it kills the trinity theory and so do facts.

Still refusing to engage the text?
 

Rick B

Active Member
Premium Member
Because rev 6 occurred in 1914--The first ride of the white horse= righteous war--the war in heaven--Michael battled satan and his angels and beat them, casting them out of heaven forever to the earth.-- Notice--he receives his crown--only Jesus is getting the crown( this is Gods kingdom taking full control of heaven-The presence)
Satan came like a devouring lion, angry, knowing his time is short--ww1--hearts filled with hatred--millions slaughtered( other 3 riders) after ww1--millions upon millions died all over the earth from the filth of slaughtering one another, pestilence, starvation, diseases--they still ride, Jesus rides the second ride of the white horse at Har-mageddon--He is the rider both times. Him getting the crown at the first ride proves it-- their are only two rides of the white horse mentioned in revelation.

Evasion. Red-Herring. Rabbit-trail. Irrelevant non-response.
 

Rick B

Active Member
Premium Member
Listen to the words at John 14:1--two beings mentioned--one is God--one is Jesus. Yes one must believe in the real Jesus--Gods son--not God. Jesus has a mortal mother. God has no beginning.
God is king of eternity. Jesus had to be appointed king( Daniel 7:13-15)--then must hand the kingdom back to his God and Father and subject himself 1Cor 15:24-28)--because he is Michael. Named Jesus as a mortal.
It is Michael who stands up for the sons of Daniel. Daniel 12:1--Jesus came just for the sons of Daniel--it was Paul who was commishioned to go to the gentiles as well.

No Michael in this text. Only in your imagination. In this debate you are only existing in the echo-chamber of your tradition. You are revealing yourself as an absurd (in the technical sense) puppet.
 

Rick B

Active Member
Premium Member
Jesus is NEVER called--HO THEOS( THE GOD) in the NT-- The Father is. The only true living God. Plain Theos in the last line at John 1:1 it did not call the word-HO THEOS.-- a god carries the biblical meaning--has godlike qualities--God( Father) did it all through Jesus( Acts 2:22, John 5:30)

The Father made Jesus name above every other name because as Jesus teaches--The Father is greater than I. Jesus points his followers to his Father, in everything-John 4:22-24

You cannot even agree with, let alone defend, your own Kingdom Interlinear which properly translates John 20:28 when Thomas sees the risen Christ:

ἀπεκρίθηAnswered ΘωμᾶςThomas καὶand εἶπενhe said αὐτῷto him ὉThe κύριόςLord μουof me καὶand ὁthe θεόςGod μου.of me!

Here is irrefutable, solid evidence against your assertion: "Jesus is NEVER called--HO THEOS( THE GOD) in the NT"

This verse, alone, in your own JW Greek Interlinear, contradicts the JW's false teaching against the full deity of Christ.

When someone provides refutation of you and you just keep repeating the same simplistic stuff, that is a demonstration you do not possess the capability of actually refuting the arguments presented to you. Your narrative cannot survive cross-examination.
 

djhwoodwerks

Well-Known Member
God in the flesh is a man made up term, not found in the bible.

John 14:10 (ESV Strong's) 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
 

djhwoodwerks

Well-Known Member
Because rev 6 occurred in 1914--The first ride of the white horse= righteous war--the war in heaven--Michael battled satan and his angels and beat them, casting them out of heaven forever to the earth.

Luke 10:17-18 (ESV Strong's) 17 The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” 18 And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Revelation is an end time prophecy, Jesus saw satan being kicked out of heaven. "I saw" = past tense, how could Revelation 6 have happened in 1914? No seals of the scroll have been opened yet.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
No one can prove it to another. Each one needs to check into the facts. I know my teachers did. Like the pagan additives off the table of demons) 1Cor 10:21) in both Christmas and easter--all you seem to think the JW,s came up with that out of thin blue air or something---The facts of human history found in encyclopedias say its truth. because it is truth.

I believe you have facts but I believe you misconstrue them. I accept valid proof as long as the person follows the rules of logic. I haven't seen any valid proof for the JW's views of Christmas and Easter yet. I go by the Bible and both events are in there.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
The first 80 years--only error filled trinity translation existed. It took many years to undo the false teachings of the past 1750 years.
this is Fact---there is only--Catholicism translating. Mormon translating And JW translating in existence.
All can see the darkness of Catholicism--they never correct errors. The Mormons added a whole book and claim Jesus showed up--yet no translation on earth shows that happened--and JW translating. to fix the errors of Catholicism translating.

I believe current translators went back to the original texts and produce a result with the Trinity in it. My guess is that Jw's a priori decided there wasn't one and mistranslated it away as best they could.
 

Rick B

Active Member
Premium Member
He did say --I and the Father are one--He also said--The Father is greater than I--proving one means in purpose.
He NEVER said he was God--- God in the flesh is a man made up term, not found in the bible. The bible clearly teaches that Jesus while on earth was made--LOWER than the angels-Heb 2:7-9--He did not get worship as found in trinity translations--they are filled with errors to deceive and fit dogma.

Philippians 2:5 Have this attitude [e]in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be [f]grasped, 7 but [g]emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death [h]on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. NASB

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. NIV

The text begins with an affirmation that the Lord Jesus initially was en morphe theou hyperchon (“in the form/nature of God existing”) and that he then emptied himself by taking on morphen doulou (“form/nature of a slave”) by being born as a man.

It is clear that this passage is an explicit and emphatic witness to Jesus’ prehuman existence, and not only to his preexistence but to his having existed as God in heaven before he became man. After all, no one disputes the fact that to exist in the form of a servant is to be a servant, is to have the very nature of a servant. In a similar manner, to exist in God’s form is to have the very nature of God, is to exist as God.

To put this in simpler terms, if one denies that Christ was truly God one must also deny that he was truly a servant. There is simply no way around this point.


“… It is not doubtful that Paul thought of Jesus Christ in terms of God. He says of Jesus that he was in the form of God. (Phil. 2:6). He then goes on to say that Jesus was found in human form (Phil. 2:8, RSV), where the AV renders that he was found in fashion as a man. The RSV somewhat misleadingly translates two Greek words by the English word form, whereas the AV correctly distinguishes between them. In the first instance the word is morphe, which means the unchanging and unchangeable essential nature of a thing; the second word is schema, which means the changing and altering external form of a person or a thing. For instance, a man has always the unchanging morphe of manhood; that is what he essentially is; but he will have different schemata, different outward forms, in babyhood, childhood, youth, maturity and old age. A tulip, a rose, a chrysanthemum, a marigold, a daffodil, a delphinium all have the same morphe, the same essential nature, for they are all flowers; but they have very different outward schemata, outward forms. Paul says that Jesus was in the morphe of God; that is to say, the essential nature of Jesus is the same as the essential nature of God; but he says that Jesus was found in the schema of a man; that is to say, he temporarily took the form of manhood upon him. The NEB renders the Greek well here. In translating the word morphe it renders the passage: ‘The divine nature was his from the first.’ In translating the word schema it says that he was ‘revealed in human shape.’ This passage leaves us in no doubt that Paul believed that the nature of Jesus is the nature of God.” (Barclay, Jesus As They Saw Him [Eerdmans Publishing Company; Grand Rapids MI, rpt. 1998], pp. 27-28; bold emphasis ours)


Rather, "existing," present active participle of huparcho. In the form of God (en morphe theou). Morph means the essential attributes as shown in the form. In his preincarnate state Christ possessed the attributes of God and so appeared to those in heaven who saw him. Here is a clear statement by Paul of the deity of Christ. (Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament; underline emphasis ours)

In other words, since to exist in the form of God is to bear the very nature and glory of God Jesus must therefore be equal with God the Father in essence. As the following writer puts it:

“The definite article to of to einai confirms that this second expression is closely connected with the first, for the function of the definite article here is designated to point back to something previously mentioned. Therefore one should expect that to einai isa theoi (“the being equal with God”) would refer epexegetically [explanatory] to the en morphe theou huparchon (“existing in the form of God”) that preceded it. This means then that “the being equal with God” is precisely another way of saying “in the form of God.” Or better still, whatever meaning one might put forth as a possible meaning for the expression morphe theou can only be properly understood in terms of isa theo, and vice versa — to einai isa theoi can only be properly understood in terms of morphe theou.” (Hawthorne, “In the Form of God and Equal with God,” Where Christology Began, p. 104)

“… (4) On the difficult translation issue of the meaning of verse 6b, I think the best linguistic argument now suggests the translation: ‘he did not think equality with God something to be used for his own advantage’. In other words, the issue is not whether Christ gains equality or whether he retains it, as in some translations. He has equality with God and there is no question of losing it; the issue is his attitude to it. (5) The ‘form of God’ (v. 6) and the ‘form of a servant’ (v. 7), which are clearly intended to be contrasted, refer to forms of appearance: the splendour of the divine glory in heaven contrasted with the human form on earth.

“These preliminary points about the exegetical decisions I make result in the following exegesis of verses 6-11. The pre-existent Christ, being equal with God, shared the divine glory in heaven. But he did not consider equality with God something he should use for his own advantage. He did not understand his equality with God as a matter of being served by others, but as something he could express in service, obedience, self-renunciation and self-humiliation for others. Therefore, he renounced the outward splendour of the heavenly court for the life of a human being on earth, one who lived his obedience to God in self-humiliation even to the point of the peculiarly shameful death by crucifixion, the death of a slave… (Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel – God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity [William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI/ Cambridge, U.K. 2008], 1. God Crucified, pp. 41-42; underline emphasis ours)


“… The term [pleroma] may express simply ‘totality.’ As modified in 2:9, the term means ‘the full measure of deity,’ and 1:19 must bear the same meaning. Therefore, it expresses that Jesus was completely God. Everything that God is, Jesus is… Here Paul stated that the Godhead determined that the human Jesus would be God, sharing all the properties, characteristics, and prerogatives of God himself. Of course, the movement in the incarnation was that God took flesh, not that a human was elevated to deity. The statement actually means that God was pleased to take human form in Jesus. He was no less than God, and he continues to be fully divine (‘dwell’ is present tense stressing an ongoing reality).

“Another factor to consider in this statement is that Paul attributed everything to the Father. The context stresses the work of God the Father on behalf of Christians. The motif continues here. There is perfect harmony in the plan of salvation, for God the Father initiated the deliverance of his people (1:12-14), and God the Father delighted in the fact that Jesus was fully and completely God (1:19)…” (Richard R. Melick, Jr., The New American Commentary, Philippians–Colossians–Philemon, pp. 224-225; comments within brackets and bold and underline emphasis ours)

"You must have the same mindset among yourselves that was in Christ Jesus, Who, although He eternally existed in the very form of God, did not consider that equality He had with God the Father something to be held on to at all costs, but instead He made Himself nothing, by taking on the very form of a slave, by being made in human likeness. And having entered into human existence, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death one dies on a cross! Because of this, God the Father exalted Him to the highest place, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the mention of the exalted name of Jesus everyone who is in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, bows the knee, and every tongue confesses: ‘Jesus Christ is Lord!’ All to the glory of God the Father!” Dr. James R. White
 
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