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Child of God?

Halcyon

Lord of the Badgers
Ok, so if Jesus was the son of God, then God must be a different entitiy to him, yes? Because its difficult to father yourself.

But many Christians believe Jesus was the incarnation of God, correct? If this is so, does that mean there was no God in heaven while Jesus lived?
But that cannot be, because Jesus himself used to talk to his 'father in heaven'.

So, if God was in heaven for Jesus to talk to, then God could not be Jesus. Thus Jesus must be a demi-god, half human (from his mother), half deity.

Of course this is not accepted by Christians.

Discuss.
 

Aqualung

Tasty
I myself don't really have anything to say, but I have always wanted to hear from those who say that God=Jesus. How could they say that, when numerous times Jesus says he is under the Falther, and that all he does he does in the FAther, and at the request of the Father. I would really like someone of that persuasion to defend that beleif too.
 

michel

Administrator Emeritus
Staff member

Who is Jesus Christ?

We believe that Jesus Christ is a completely unique (one of a kind) human being.

Why?

He is the only man ever born by way of God putting a seed in the womb of a virgin (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:35). God put a perfect seed in the womb of Mary so that Jesus would be born without the sin nature that every other human being inherited from the First Adam. Therefore, Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God (John 3:16) and the Son of Man (John 5:27).

He is the only man who is called “the Last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45). As the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus was the genetic equivalent to the first “Son of God,” Adam (Luke 3:38). As the only man born without inherent sin, Jesus was thus the only man equipped to be the Savior and Redeemer of mankind. Romans 5:12-21 is the classic comparison of these two Adams and the respective impact each had on mankind.

He is the only man who had perfect faith in God, and who, by his free will choices to trust God, lived a sinless life, always doing the will of his Father (John 8:29). Jesus was not a robot, programmed to obey God. If so, he could not have been genuinely tempted to sin, just like all men he came to save (Heb. 4:15). The absence of a sin nature was not the reason why Jesus did not sin. We know that because the First Adam also had no sin nature, and he sinned royally.

He is the only man who died as the perfect sacrifice for our sins (Heb. 10:12-14; 1 John 4:10). By his virgin birth, Jesus was the “genetically” perfect sacrifice for the sin of mankind. By his lifelong obedience to God, all the way to his dying breath on the Cross, he became the “behaviorally” perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind (Heb. 2:17). Thus, he was the complete propitiation for fallen men to be redeemed.

He is the only man God ever raised from the dead in order to confirm that he was who he had said he was—the Son of God (Acts 17:31; Rom. 1:4). The resurrection of Jesus Christ was God keeping His promise to His Son, and also His affirmation to all men that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

He is the only man whom God highly exalted as “Lord” and “Head of the Church,” and to whom God has given all authority in heaven and on earth (Dan. 7:13-14; Phil. 2:9; Acts 2:36; Eph. 1:22; Matt. 28:18). As Pharaoh exalted Joseph to his right hand and gave him all authority in Egypt (Gen. 41:37-46), so God has given Jesus functional equality with Himself. Jesus Christ is now God’s “right hand man” (Eph. 1:20), carrying out the work that will eventually restore this fallen world.

He is the only man who is now the Mediator between God and mankind (1 Tim. 2:5). It is Jesus Christ to whom God has given the power to “save to the uttermost” all who call upon his name, because he ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25).

He is the only man who will gather together all Christians to meet him “in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17) and give each one a new body like his own (Phil. 3:21). As the promised “seed” of the woman (Gen. 3:15), Jesus Christ will produce fruit after his kind, a race of people living forever.

He is the only man who will one day return to the earth, destroy all evil men (and eventually destroy Satan and his evil spirit cohorts), and rule the earth as King for 1000 years (Rev. 19:11-20:7). At his first coming to the earth to Israel, Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb of God, but he will come again as the Lion of Judah to save his people, Israel, and destroy all God’s enemies.

He is the only man who will raise from the dead every human being who has ever lived (John 5:21, 25). As God has given Jesus “life in himself,” so he will raise up all people.

He is the only man who will judge all men and women of all time (John 5:22, 27). Jesus will righteously judge all people, granting everlasting life to those who deserve it, and annihilating all the wicked (Acts 17:31; John 5:28, 29).

He is the only man who will restore on a new earth the Paradise that the First Adam lost (1 Cor. 15:24-28). As “the Last Adam,” Jesus was God’s Contingency Plan to salvage His original plan that Adam’s disobedience thwarted, that is, a perfect race of people living forever on a perfect earth. Amen.

He is the only man who is our Savior, our Redeemer, our Mediator, our Lord, our constant Companion, our Best Friend, our Big Brother, the Light of our lives, our Peace, our Joy, and our Mentor in the art of faith.

He is the Lover of our souls, and that is why we love him and confess him as Lord (Rom. 10:9).

Source :-http://www.truthortradition.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=429:)
 

Terrywoodenpic

Oldest Heretic
Halcyon said:
Ok, so if Jesus was the son of God, then God must be a different entitiy to him, yes? Because its difficult to father yourself.

But many Christians believe Jesus was the incarnation of God, correct? If this is so, does that mean there was no God in heaven while Jesus lived?
But that cannot be, because Jesus himself used to talk to his 'father in heaven'.

So, if God was in heaven for Jesus to talk to, then God could not be Jesus. Thus Jesus must be a demi-god, half human (from his mother), half deity.

Of course this is not accepted by Christians.

Discuss.
The belief is that jesus is the Son God.
During his life on earth Jesus was fully man and able to communicate directly with God to whom he prayed.
When he went up to heaven He became one with God and with the holy spirit.
I prefer to see Jesus and The Holy Spirit as aspects of God.
If you want it in scriptural language I am sure you will get it. but not from me.

Terry
______________________________________________
Amen! Truly I say to you: Gather in my name. I am with you.
 

dan

Well-Known Member
Deut. 32.8 said:
To anticipate NetDoc: if God were conceivable/comprehensible - is would not be God.
How very Catholic (neo-platonic) of you. Read John 17:3. We have no life in us if we do not come to know God and Jesus personally (and yes that means comprehend them).
 

dan

Well-Known Member
Here's the deal. Everyone and everything existed spiritually before physically. We were all intelligences before we were organized into spirits and given physical bodies. God was our spiritual creator. Christ was His first creation and our spiritual superior. There was a council in heaven before the foundations of this world were laid in order to decide the destiny of our spirits. Christ offered himself as a sacrifice to atone for the sins we would inevitably commit. We receive forgiveness when we comply with his law (faith, repentance, baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost). Lucifer offered to be the savior, but his plan was to rob us of free will so we would all make it back. Our Father rejected Lucifer's plan and he was thrown out with a third of God's spirit children. We were given bodies (through physical mothers and fathers) and the Gospel was preached beginning with Adam. The prophets looked forward to the coming of Christ through the ages. He was born on April 6, 1 B.C. God put His spirit in a body He prepared in the womb of a human virgin. Christ is the only begotten in that He is the only man to ever be created spiritually and physically by God the Father in this fallen world. We are all spiritual sons and daughters of God the Father, and through the principles and ordinances of the Gospel we can become sons and daughters of God the Son (Christ). See John 1:12. This is the adoption spoken of by Paul and the only way to have the atonement wipe us clean of our sins.
 

Halcyon

Lord of the Badgers
dan said:
Here's the deal. Everyone and everything existed spiritually before physically. We were all intelligences before we were organized into spirits and given physical bodies. God was our spiritual creator. Christ was His first creation and our spiritual superior. There was a council in heaven before the foundations of this world were laid in order to decide the destiny of our spirits. Christ offered himself as a sacrifice to atone for the sins we would inevitably commit. We receive forgiveness when we comply with his law (faith, repentance, baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost). Lucifer offered to be the savior, but his plan was to rob us of free will so we would all make it back. Our Father rejected Lucifer's plan and he was thrown out with a third of God's spirit children. We were given bodies (through physical mothers and fathers) and the Gospel was preached beginning with Adam. The prophets looked forward to the coming of Christ through the ages. He was born on April 6, 1 B.C. God put His spirit in a body He prepared in the womb of a human virgin. Christ is the only begotten in that He is the only man to ever be created spiritually and physically by God the Father in this fallen world. We are all spiritual sons and daughters of God the Father, and through the principles and ordinances of the Gospel we can become sons and daughters of God the Son (Christ). See John 1:12. This is the adoption spoken of by Paul and the only way to have the atonement wipe us clean of our sins.
Where did you find this out, its not in the bible?

He was born on April 6, 1 B.C.
Sorry, but the only thing i can say about this is, huh?
There is no way you could possibly know that.
 

tedicast

New Member
Taken from Biblegateway.com
John 14:6-14 6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know[a] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."


8Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." 9Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Romans 9:5
5Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Phillipians 2:5-7 5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

Colossians 2:6-10 6So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.


8See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. 9For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.

IMO these verses make it very clear that Jesus is God in human form.
 

Halcyon

Lord of the Badgers
tedicast said:
IMO these verses make it very clear that Jesus is God in human form.
So, in that case you must believe that if God was on Earth in the human form of Jesus, then He couldn't be in heaven, right?
 

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
Halcyon said:
Ok, so if Jesus was the son of God, then God must be a different entitiy to him, yes? Because its difficult to father yourself.
Difficult? How about impossible?

But many Christians believe Jesus was the incarnation of God, correct? If this is so, does that mean there was no God in heaven while Jesus lived?
But that cannot be, because Jesus himself used to talk to his 'father in heaven'.
I'd say that about 99.999% of all Christians believe this. But, as you've pointed out, this belief is totally inconsistent with reason. Jesus definitely referred to His Father as being in Heaven. He also talked to Him often. The scriptures supporting the belief that the Father and Son are physically distinct from one another (as opposed to being part of a single invisible essence) are so numerous that I'd hardly know where to start in citing examples.

So, if God was in heaven for Jesus to talk to, then God could not be Jesus. Thus Jesus must be a demi-god, half human (from his mother), half deity.
I see the Father and Son as both being divine, but physically separate from one another. I believe that their relationship is truly a father-son relationship, and that they are not simply two separate manifestations or aspects of a single being. On the other hand, if you look up the word "Godhead" in most any dictionary, the word "God" is given as a synonym. Therefore, depending upon the context of the word, "God" may be understood at times to mean "Godhead" -- as in the references to their being only one "God." I believe that the Father and Son share the name/title of God. So, in speaking of "God,", I could be speaking of either one or the other of them or of both of them simultaneously (i.e. the Godhead -- also including the Holy Ghost). As a Latter-day Saint, I see Jesus as being both human and divine -- the Son of a divine Father and a human mother. But because, to us, the human and the divine are not mutually exclusive categories, Jesus is not a "demi-god" at all, but God in His own right.

Kathryn
 

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
Terrywoodenpic said:
The belief is that jesus is the Son God.
During his life on earth Jesus was fully man and able to communicate directly with God to whom he prayed.
When he went up to heaven He became one with God and with the holy spirit.
I prefer to see Jesus and The Holy Spirit as aspects of God.
If you want it in scriptural language I am sure you will get it. but not from me.
So, if you believe that Jesus became one with God and with the holy spirit when He went up to heaven, does this mean that you believe He no longer has a physical body? He left this earth with one. What do you believe has happened to it since then? If you believe that He still does have the body He was resurrected with, how can He be part of the same essence as God the Father who, I am assuming, you believe to be solely spirit in substance?
 

Halcyon

Lord of the Badgers
Very well expressed Kat, thank you. :)

At the risk of sending this thread off-topic - where do you feel the Holy Ghost fits in? If God is the creator and Jesus is the son of God - where did the Ghost come from and what is its relationship to these other two?
 

michel

Administrator Emeritus
Staff member
Hi tedicast, Namaste.

I notice that this is your first post on this forum, and I wanted to say hello, and welcome;You might find this helpful: Articles for New Members ; from there, there is a link to the forum rules which you might like to look at.

I hope you enjoy being here, and happy posting!:)
 

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
Halcyon said:
Very well expressed Kat, thank you. :)

At the risk of sending this thread off-topic - where do you feel the Holy Ghost fits in? If God is the creator and Jesus is the son of God - where did the Ghost come from and what is its relationship to these other two?
Hi, Halcyon.

Well, I'd say that the main difference between the LDS understanding and the traditional understanding of the Holy Ghost is that, unlike everybody else, we believe that both the Father and the Son are corporeal beings, that the Son is, as the Bible states, "the express image of the Father's person." I'm kind of thinking that it would be pretty difficult for the Son to be the express image of the Father's person if the Father was not a person at all. (As you can probably tell by most of what I have already said in my previous post, we tend to take a more literal approach to the Bible than do most Christians, and accept as figurative only those passages that would simply not make any sense if interpreted literally.)

So, we see the Holy Ghost as the third personage of the Godhead and the only member of the Godhead who is actually a spirit being. Not coincidentally, we believe that this is why the scriptures refer to Him as the "Holy Ghost." If the Father himself were simply a spirit being and only the Son had a body of flesh and bones, it would make little sense for the Holy Ghost to be referred to in this way. His lack of a corporeal body is what makes Him distinct and sets Him apart from the Father and the Son. We see Him as a separate being (also known as God) from the Father and the Son and the part of the Godhead that communicates with mankind. We see Him as the link between God and man. He is the Revelator. When God wants to interact with His children, He does so through the Holy Ghost. He is the spiritual force by which God's will is made known to us. The scripture that says "God is [a] spirit," continues by stating that we are to "worship Him in spirit and in truth." We, as corporeal beings, cannot cast off our physical bodies in order to worship God in spirit, but we can worship Him through the part of the Godhead that is spirit. This would also explain why we say that we believe that God the Father is physically "in Heaven" (which is where Jesus always spoke of Him as being) but spiritually omnipresent. The Holy Ghost, on the other hand, can physically be everywhere at once.
 

tedicast

New Member
Halcyon said:
So, in that case you must believe that if God was on Earth in the human form of Jesus, then He couldn't be in heaven, right?
Of course He could be in Heaven. All things are possible with God. Do you believe He can only hear one prayer at a time? In the bible it says that God is spirit, meaning He is everywhere. I don't believe that God has a physical body, in the bible is says that God is invisible and no one can see Him and live. I know in the OT is says that some people have seen God but I believe that God transformed Himself in different ways in order to talk to people.
Jesus has a human mother which is why He prayed to God, being also human He was not equal to God while He was here on earth and that is why He is called the Son of God. God did not have "relations" with anyone to create Jesus, Mary was a virgin when she got pregnant with Jesus. Do you believe that? God is our creator and we become His children when we accept Christ as our Savior.
 

tedicast

New Member
michel said:
Hi tedicast, Namaste.

I notice that this is your first post on this forum, and I wanted to say hello, and welcome;You might find this helpful: Articles for New Members ; from there, there is a link to the forum rules which you might like to look at.

I hope you enjoy being here, and happy posting!:)
Thank you Michel, I think I will enjoy posting here, lot's of interesting topics!
 

dan

Well-Known Member
Halcyon said:
Where did you find this out, its not in the bible?

Sorry, but the only thing i can say about this is, huh?
There is no way you could possibly know that.

1) A lot of it is in fact in the Bible, but the particulars are revelations received by prophets of God.

2) That's what everyone always says about revelations from God.
 
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