BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
This is not a thread to start a Trinitarian debate, but saying "I and the Father are one" does not mean Jesus said he is God. Are you a Messianic Jew, Sinner2saint? Jesus said "Let them be one as we are one". Does that mean he invited the disciples to become part of God too? Obviously not. So he said "let them be one AS we are one". That means "I and the Father are one" does not mean he is saying they are the same being, but the same mindset and purpose.
If you want to debate the issue, here is a thread for it, where this issue and many other Trintiarian claims have been debunked multiple times.
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/religious-debates/61330-did-jesus-say-he-god.html
Every place where it is claimed that it says Jesus said he was God, it is a textual and grammatical controversy. For instance, John 1:1c should read "And the word was A god" like in the NWT. Likewise with John 8:58, which is also oft cited, the use of "I am" doesn't make sense gramatically for Jesus to be saying "I am I am", and the Name itself is not really "I am", it is "I shall be".
What do you think of Matthew 7:22-23? Calling someone "lord" is not necessarily the same thing as the fullness of what "believe in" entails, the word Pisteuon means more or less "Be convinced" than "blindly believe". Jesus said you must "Strive to enter the narrow gate". Obviously "Believing in" Jesus involves a whole lot more than just calling him lord. And I'm sure you're aware that it's about calling Jesus "lord" in lower case, like how David was called "lord".
Per Hebrews, Jesus is not merely an angel, not merely a man. We have in the scriptures:
*Angels
*Men
*The divine
Y'shua is part of the plural oneness of divinity in the Shema. Y'shua was there from Eden onward... if He was a created divine, He showed the ability to manifest Himself for centuries before His incarnation within Miriam...