In the Book of Revelation, God is not the Lamb, and the Lamb is not God.

[LightofTruth]

When Jesus was raised from the death it means that the man Jesus of Nazareth came back to life. This can be seen in the Gospel stories where we see that the man Jesus of Nazareth came back to life. Jesus even ascended to heaven as a man.
So why do you say that Jesus is not a man anymore?
The passages below also show us that Jesus is still a man.
1Tim 2:5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave Himself as a ransom for all—
Acts 17:31 For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”

Jesus came back to life with a spiritual body. The natural body he first came with was mortal. Made mortal by the first man, Adam.
The body he now has is no longer under death's dominion. He has taken on the divine nature. And so too will those whom he raises to life eternal partake of the divine nature.

 

[Brian2]

Jesus came back to life with a spiritual body. The natural body he first came with was mortal. Made mortal by the first man, Adam.
The body he now has is no longer under death's dominion. He has taken on the divine nature. And so too will those whom he raises to life eternal partake of the divine nature.

Jesus had a spiritual body but that does not mean that the body was made out of spirit. Jesus rose from the dead in His old body which had been glorified and made immortal and incorruptible.
Jesus has always had the divine nature, or so the Bible teaches. (Phil 2:6)
Having the divine nature does not mean that we will be spirits however.
But of course Jesus is fully divine and in Him dwells all the fullness of deity in bodily form (Col 2:9) We cannot hope to become fully divine.

 

[LightofTruth]

Jesus had a spiritual body but that does not mean that the body was made out of spirit. Jesus rose from the dead in His old body which had been glorified and made immortal and incorruptible.
Jesus has always had the divine nature, or so the Bible teaches. (Phil 2:6)
Having the divine nature does not mean that we will be spirits however.
But of course Jesus is fully divine and in Him dwells all the fullness of deity in bodily form (Col 2:9) We cannot hope to become fully divine.

A body which has been glorified, made immortal and incorruptible, is a body which differs in nature to that of the glory of the natural and mortal corruptible body. IOW, it is changed from one type of body to another.

If Jesus always had the divine nature, then his body (when born of Mary) would not have been subject to death (mortal). it would not have been a natural body. But that is false.

When it's said that "in him dwells all the fullness of deity in bodily form" it refers to the Spirit of God dwelling in him....that is, in the natural mortal body.

Suppose God were to give me the ability to heal the sick. That would not change my nature as a mortal man. It would simply mean that God is working through me by giving me that ability. He is NOT adding a nature to me.

 

[LightofTruth]

To say that Jesus created all things is to say that the Word created all things. the Word which created all things is God. If God did not have a powerful Spirit by which all things are created then He could not create all things.
But God does have a powerful Spirit by which all things are created and sustained. And God has given FULLY and without measure of that Spirit to Jesus. Therefore, Jesus is attributed with the creation and sustainability of all things.

 

[Trailblazer]

Jesus came back to life with a spiritual body. The natural body he first came with was mortal. Made mortal by the first man, Adam.
The body he now has is no longer under death's dominion. He has taken on the divine nature. And so too will those whom he raises to life eternal partake of the divine nature.

I believe that Jesus was raised in a spiritual body and that body will no longer be under death's dominion, as Paul said:

1 Corinthians 15:44 They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

54 Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die,[c] this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory.

I believe that Jesus had a human nature and a divine nature. All humans have a human nature, but only Jesus had/has a divine nature because Jesus was a Manifestation of God.

I do not believe that Jesus will raise certain people, I do not even believe that Jesus will raise anyone. I believe that all humans will experience the same thing when their body dies, they will be raised in a spiritual body. However, only those who were close to God will have eternal life which is a state of the soul that is near to God. Those souls who were far from God will still continue to exist in the spiritual world but they will be "as dead."

What I believe is meant by the resurrection is that when our body dies, our spirit (soul) is resurrected and passes from one world into another. After our spirit is resurrected it continues to live forever. Please note that on the context of the afterlife the words spirit and soul have the same meaning.

421. When the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in the natural world that correspond to the spirit’s thoughts and affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is said to die. This takes place when the respiration of the lungs and the beatings of the heart cease. But the man does not die; he is merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the world, while the man himself continues to live. It is said that the man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. Evidently, then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. And this is why in the Word in its internal sense “death” signifies resurrection and continuation of life. Heaven and Hell, p. 351

Congruent with the Bible, the physical body returns to the earth and the spirit returns to God, who resides in the spiritual world.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

The death of man is merely his soul passing from one world into another. When the soul passes from this world into the spiritual world it takes on a new form comprised of spiritual elements and the man continues to live forever.

I believe that Jesus is alive in heaven in a spiritual body. Jesus is not alive in a physical body because physical bodies do not exist in the spiritual world (heaven).

“The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother. When the soul attaineth the Presence of God, it will assume the form that best befitteth its immortality and is worthy of its celestial habitation.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 157

“The answer to the third question is this, that in the other world the human reality doth not assume a physical form, rather doth it take on a heavenly form, made up of elements of that heavenly realm.” Selections From the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 194

 

[Trailblazer]

A body which has been glorified, made immortal and incorruptible, is a body which differs in nature to that of the glory of the natural and mortal corruptible body. IOW, it is changed from one type of body to another.

Yes, that is exactly what Paul said, but the physical body is not changed into a glorified spiritual body as many Christians believe. Rather, the physical body dies and the soul leaves the dead physical body and is raised in a spiritual body.

All physical bodies will die and we will be raised as spiritual bodies. Paul says that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God and that means they cannot exist in heaven. When Paul says these dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever, he is referring to the spiritual world (heaven), which will last forever.

1 Corinthians 15:40-54 New Living Translation

40 There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies.

44 They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

50 What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever.

51 But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed!

54 Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die,[c] this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory.[d]

Read full chapter

 

[Brian2]

A body which has been glorified, made immortal and incorruptible, is a body which differs in nature to that of the glory of the natural and mortal corruptible body. IOW, it is changed from one type of body to another.

True, we do not know exactly what this body is going to be like but it will be the same sort of body Jesus rose in. Jesus said (Luke 24) that He was flesh and bone so I would say that our resurrection body would be flesh and bone. But that probably does not say much about the body.

If Jesus always had the divine nature, then his body (when born of Mary) would not have been subject to death (mortal). it would not have been a natural body. But that is false.

Jesus as a man on earth was more than His body. He did have a spirit also. The spirit comes from God and is our life but it is more than just a life force. For a start it knows our mind.
1Cor 2:10 But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
So anyway this means that Jesus could have had the nature of God even as a man. In fact that is what the scriptures say.
Phil 2:6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
Here "being" is a present participle and I am told that means that Jesus not only had the divine nature, but kept it as a man.

When it's said that "in him dwells all the fullness of deity in bodily form" it refers to the Spirit of God dwelling in him....that is, in the natural mortal body.

It is in the present tense and so refers to Jesus now in whatever body He has.
Is the Spirit of God all the fullness of deity? Is the Holy Spirit God? I think so. But to be the fullness of deity the Holy Spirit has to have the Father. The Son has the Holy Spirit and the Father in Him.

Suppose God were to give me the ability to heal the sick. That would not change my nature as a mortal man. It would simply mean that God is working through me by giving me that ability. He is NOT adding a nature to me.

True and Jesus lived as a normal man also with a human nature and did not use His divine nature except that it is because of that nature that Jesus was able to resist sin.
Jesus however lived as a man and God gave Him the power to do the miracles.
Jesus is the Son of God His Father and so is exactly like Him in nature and so does not sin.
It is not the doing of miracles that adds a nature for Jesus, it is just that Jesus took on the nature of a servant when He became a man. He did not have the nature of a servant before this.
Phil 2:7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
This is when He stepped into creation imo (Col 1:15,16) and when His Father became His God (Psalm 22:10) in His mother's womb.
But Jesus certainly was not a created being if "all things" were created through Him.

 

[LightofTruth]

True, we do not know exactly what this body is going to be like but it will be the same sort of body Jesus rose in. Jesus said (Luke 24) that He was flesh and bone so I would say that our resurrection body would be flesh and bone. But that probably does not say much about the body.

Right. A flesh and bone body that never dies. They will be partakers of the divine nature just like Jesus.

Jesus as a man on earth was more than His body. He did have a spirit also. The spirit comes from God and is our life but it is more than just a life force. For a start it knows our mind.
1Cor 2:10 But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Is man's own spirit another person other than himself? No.
Is God's own spirit another person other than himself? No.

So anyway this means that Jesus could have had the nature of God even as a man. In fact that is what the scriptures say.
Phil 2:6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
Here "being" is a present participle and I am told that means that Jesus not only had the divine nature, but kept it as a man.

As I understand it. The passage is not speaking of Jesus before he was born but after he was given a full measure of God's spirit.

Your version of Philipians 2:6 that uses the word "nature" is incorrect. The word actually refers to an outward appearance and NOT the very substance or nature.

 

[CG Didymus]

Jesus was before Abraham because the soul of Jesus existed in the spiritual world before Abraham existed in this world, not because Jesus was God. Since the spiritual world is without beginning or end, that is why Jesus was the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

(96) PRE-EXISTENCE - of Prophets
The Prophets, unlike us, are pre-existent. The soul of Christ existed in the spiritual world before His birth in this world. We cannot imagine what that world is like, so words are inadequate to picture His state of being.

(Shoghi Effendi: High Endeavors, Page: 71)

I think you need to clarify some things here. Baha'is have "manifestations" and they have something a little less they call "prophets". Do both pre-exist or just manifestations? Either way you have a problem saying Jesus existed before Abraham, because Baha'is believe both were manifestations. So then, if it is only manifestations that pre-exist, does that mean Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Muhammad and all the rest of the manifestations pre-exist? Did they all have a soul that, I'd imagine, would be perfect and they reflected God perfectly and obeyed him perfectly? Then each of those souls was incarnated into the physical bodies of the various manifestations? The problem with that would be that God is able to take a spiritual that is very near to being like God and cramming that spirit into a physical body. But, he can't cram a part of himself into a physical body?

 

[Trailblazer]

I think you need to clarify some things here. Baha'is have "manifestations" and they have something a little less they call "prophets". Do both pre-exist or just manifestations? Either way you have a problem saying Jesus existed before Abraham, because Baha'is believe both were manifestations. So then, if it is only manifestations that pre-exist, does that mean Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Muhammad and all the rest of the manifestations pre-exist? Did they all have a soul that, I'd imagine, would be perfect and they reflected God perfectly and obeyed him perfectly? Then each of those souls was incarnated into the physical bodies of the various manifestations? The problem with that would be that God is able to take a spiritual that is very near to being like God and cramming that spirit into a physical body. But, he can't cram a part of himself into a physical body?

I believe that only the Manifestations of God have pre-existence in the spiritual world but don't quote me on that.
The reason I say that is because only a Manifestations of God has a twofold nature; the other lesser prophets are only human, they do not have a spiritual nature.

“Unto this subtle, this mysterious and ethereal Being He hath assigned a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which is born of the substance of God Himself. He hath, moreover, conferred upon Him a double station. The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself. To this testifieth the tradition: “Manifold and mysterious is My relationship with God. I am He, Himself, and He is I, Myself, except that I am that I am, and He is that He is.” …. The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: “I am but a man like you.” “Say, praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man, an apostle?” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 66-67

Jesus existed before Abraham was born and lived on earth because Jesus was preexistent in the spiritual world, but if Abraham was also was pre-existent in the spiritual world, Jesus and Abraham bith existed for the same amount of time.

It is only Manifestations of God that pre-exist, so that means that the souls of Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Muhammad and all the rest of the Manifestations pre-existed. They all had a soul that,was perfect and they reflected God perfectly and obeyed him perfectly. Their souls were not incarnated into their physical bodies; rather, their souls united with their physical bodies when they were conceived.

No, God cannot be crammed into a physical body because God is spirit, not flesh. Thus only the Attributes of God can be manifested in a physical body, not God's Essence. God incarnate Himself and become a man.

“The Christian equivalent to the Bahá'í concept of Manifestation is the concept of incarnation. The word to incarnate means 'to embody in flesh or 'to assume, or exist in, a bodily (esp. a human) form (Oxford English Dictionary). From a Bahá'í point of view, the important question regarding the subject of incarnation is, what does Jesus incarnate? Bahá'ís can certainly say that Jesus incarnated Gods attributes, in the sense that in Jesus, Gods attributes were perfectly reflected and expressed.[4] The Bahá'í scriptures, however, reject the belief that the ineffable essence of the Divinity was ever perfectly and completely contained in a single human body, because the Bahá'í scriptures emphasize the omnipresence and transcendence of the essence of God…..

One can argue that Bahá'u'lláh is asserting that epistemologically the Manifestations are God, for they are the perfect embodiment of all we can know about God; but ontologically they are not God, for they are not identical with God's essence. Perhaps this is the meaning of the words attributed to Jesus in the gospel of John: 'If you had known me, you would have known my Father also' (John 14:7) and 'he who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9)…..

The New Testament, similarly, contains statements where Jesus describes Himself as God, and others where He makes a distinction between Himself and God. For example, 'I and the Father are One (John 10:30); and 'the Father is in me, and I am in the Father (John 1038); but on the other hand, 'the Father is greater than I (John 14:28); and 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). These statements do not contradict, but are complementary if one assumes they assert an epistemological oneness with God, but an ontological separateness from the Unknowable Essence.”

Jesus Christ in the Bahá'í Writings

 

[Brian2]

Is man's own spirit another person other than himself? No.
Is God's own spirit another person other than himself? No.

The oneness of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is like the oneness of us. Our mind, body and spirit are one being. My mind tells me things and my body does and my spirit does. My body controls me at times, as does my mind and spirit. With me the oneness is not perfect and there is disharmony at times.
We are not God however. He is in complete harmony for a start. His life and consciousness is in all of Himself also.
Jesus is distinct from the Father and Holy Spirit but they are ONE in nature.

As I understand it. The passage is not speaking of Jesus before he was born but after he was given a full measure of God's spirit.

Your version of Philipians 2:6 that uses the word "nature" is incorrect. The word actually refers to an outward appearance and NOT the very substance or nature.

Phil 2:6 is speaking about the pre human Jesus who was in the form of God then and continued in that form into the future when He became a man.
Phil 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
In the above passage "fashion" and "likeness" are similar in that they refer to the outward appearance. "Form" refers more to the inward nature.
What is the "form of a servant"? It is the inward nature of a servant that Jesus took on when He became a man, became the likeness of a man.
You cannot be in the form of (have the nature of) God without being God and you cannot be in the form of (have the nature of) a servant without being a servant.