Do you know the meaning of the light rays coming from the Saints and Christ? Have you not read John 8:12, Malachi 4:2, Matthew 5:14, John 9:12 or Philippians 2:15? The sun rays and the halos are simply pictorial and artistic representations of these Scriptural truths.I put no great store in what John Chrysostom says. He is your saint, not mine. And this is pure supposition on his part.
If the same power that created the universe also inspired scripture, then it will be scientifically accurate. Besides, what does God care about sun worship? And why does the church have a problem with it?.....to me it seems to be obvious that the Catholic church is steeped in it anyway.
They're not based on the speculations of me, this view of Genesis is based on a simple reading of the Scriptures. It's you who speculate about the existence of the sun prior to God having created it on the fourth day.I am not missing any points. This is Catholic belief...nothing to do with my beliefs, which are not based on the speculations of men with nothing but their own opinions.
And yet there are two orders of creation--in one case, man is created before all life (Genesis 2:18-19), and in another case, man is created last (as in Genesis 1). This is to signify that Genesis is not concerned with teaching us the natural history of how everything was created, but is concerned rather with teaching us about God's power and our complete dependence on Him, rather than anything that has been created.I am assuming that God knows the order of his own creation, which is clearly stated in Genesis.
Jumping to conclusions based on human thinking is also a bit precarious.
Philip B. Harner (who I have already cited in this discussion), Siegfried Schulz and St. John Chrysostom (a native Greek-speaker) all see the anarthrous theos in John 1:1c to be signifying qualities of the Word; the Word is God, or has the nature of God. Siegfried Schulz (whose translation of John 1:1 is cited by the Jehovah's Witnesses as evidence for their position) says in particular that John 1:1 attributes to Jesus eternal existence (as in John 1:1a), and John 1:1c attributes to Him the same nature as God the Father, and the anarthrous theos in 1:1c calls Jesus "God" in the same way that the Father is God. That the Word is not called "the theos" in 1:1c shows us that the Word is not identical to the Father, but shares in the same essence. Schulz states explicitly that a proper reading of John 1:1c renders the Word consubstantial (i.e. having the same Divine Nature and Essence) as the Father. St. John Chrysostom states much the same thing.The heart of the matter in John 1:1 is whether it indicates that Jesus is Almighty God. Your church cooked up the trinity, not mine. It is not a scriptural teaching, in fact I believe it to be blasphemous.
There is no scripture that says Jesus is Almighty God incarnate. The apostles did not teach that Father and son share any equality and Jesus never once said he was God.
Someone should probably tell the Watchtower to remove Schulz from the list of translations that they count in their favor.
Jesus could have very easily corrected the Jews and denied His claim to divinity which they accused Him of. But instead He lets their complaint against Him stand.Jesus only ever referred to his himself as The "son" of God.
John 10:31-36:
"Again the Jews lifted stones to stone him. 32 Jesus answered “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning me?”
33 The Jews answered “We are not stoning you in reference to a good work, but to a blasphemy and because you, being a man, are claiming to be God.”
34 Jesus answered “Is it not set down in your law ‘I said, You are gods’? 35 If he called those men gods, those who had had God’s word coming to them, and the text cannot be invalidated, 36 do you say of the one whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world ‘You are blaspheming’ because I said ‘I am God’s son’?"
Here Jesus says that his Father called human judges in Israel "gods" because of their exercising divinely appointed authority.
If ever there was an opportunity for Jesus to proclaim his status, it was then....but what did he call himself?
It was the Jews accusing him of claiming to be God because they wanted an excuse to kill him. They wanted to stone him, which usually meant death.
The interpretation of John 1:1c isn't mere "disputing about words". This is about a pivotal verse which you use to deny the divinity of Christ. It's about the very heart of Who Jesus Christ is.Paul wrote...."If any one teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching which accords with godliness, 4 he is puffed up with conceit, he knows nothing; he has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions..."
I am not going to "dispute about words" anymore. You are free to believe whatever you wish about this. We will never agree. This is descending into the ridiculous....
Jesus died in the flesh, and rose from the dead, because death cannot possibly contain God. By trampling down death by His death, He freed us from the bonds of sin and death (Romans 6 and 8). This is why His Resurrection is so powerful, and is what our faith stands or falls on (1 Corinthians 15).So you are of the opinion that mere mortals can kill God?
God died in the flesh. God is immortal, but the flesh is mortal.If Jesus was God, then he was immortal and cannot die. If he did not really die, then the ransom is not paid and we are all still doomed in our sins. You assume a great deal about what scripture does not say.
He bridged the gulf between us and Him by taking on all that we are and sharing in our life, so that we could share in His life.Why did Jesus have to become a human in the first place? If he was God, then why the need to be born as a human child?
God the Father, the first Person of the Trinity. The Trinity is not one God wearing three different masks.The story really starts to unravel when you see what is implied in God becoming a human. To whom did Jesus pray?
He also called Himself the Way, the Truth and the Life, the Light of the World and the Good Shepherd. His Apostles call him Christ, Logos and Lord.If he was God, then he spent a lot of time directing people to another part of himself.
Jesus laid aside much of His divine power and glory. As a child, he had to keep increasing in wisdom and power (Luke 2:40). Let us suppose for just a moment that Jesus is truly (as the Jehovah's Witnesses say) the Archangel Michael. Are we to think that a small child living in a rural village in 1st-century Palestine knew more than the Archangel Michael?It says in Matthew that God knew things that Jesus didn't.....how can that be?
Of course not. We see that Jesus laid aside His glory, which He had with the Father before the world was (John 17:5). Also note that in this verse, Jesus stated that He possessed the same glory as God Himself. No angel shares the same glory as God; even the Seraphim must shield their faces with their wings because they cannot bear His glory (Isaiah 6:2).
The point being, Jesus laid aside His glory, knowledge and power to become one of us. When Jesus said that He didn't know when the day or the hour was, it was because He had set aside that knowledge to truly be human.
Jesus died in the flesh, and He was raised up by the Father.If Jesus was God, who raised him from the dead? Can God die?
Yes. Jesus is, after all, fully human, and is our High Priest.That makes no sense. If he is "the beginning of the creation by God" then his 'begetting' is his creation. "Only begotten" is "monogenes" which means an "only child". It is used with reference to Jesus in the same way that others are referred to as "only" children. If Jesus still worships his Father even in heaven, then where is the equality? Does one part of God worship another part of himself? Do you see how ridiculous that is?
Additionally, Jesus is the firstfruits of the dead. He is not the first person to rise from the dead; we know that the dead had been raised several times in the Old Testaments. So then, what does it mean that He is the firstfruits?
And the head of every woman is the man. Does this mean that women are of an inferior nature, or are less than human? Of course not. Men and women are both of the same nature. But the Son is obedient to the Father and does the will of the Father. They share one and the same divine Will.1 Corinthians 11:3: Paul wrote....
"But I want you to know that the head of every man is the Christ; in turn, the head of a woman is the man; in turn, the head of the Christ is God."
God is the head of Christ...even in heaven. This was written after Jesus' ascension.